Living in the Wild

So we do live in Africa, but people sometimes confuse Cape Town with the rest of Africa. Or as some people say, 'the REAL Africa.' We DO live in real Africa, but admittedly, it is not the same and as 'hard core' as many first imagine when they hear about our lives. We live in a city, and truly, our ministry is more like 'inner-city' work in the United States. We have internet, cable, and grocery stores. We do not have lions, tigers, and bears anywhere nearby, although we DO have dogs that roam around the township at all times - once even caused a scooter accident for our Ubuntu intern, Andy Chenlo as he barked and chased him down the road! Saying all that, we do have some critters that love to hang out in our house, and they do have a noted 'wild' side to them. Our house is build on some sort of water/lagoonish area so it's just damp and wet, even more than regular wet Africa. It rained so hard yesterday that it rose up the house and almost inside - some men of the church busted a hole in the concrete wall surrounding the house so the water could drain! Anywhoo, this sort of environment is evidently a lovely abode for both cockroaches and mice. I know what you are thinking, "I live in the woods and we have HUGE roaches," or "I went to Mexico once and bugs... blah blah..." I'm going to stop you. No, you haven't seen big roaches. These ARE HUGE, and you can see all their body parts, and they shine, and they look at you as they stroll through the kitchen as if to say 'whatEVER human...' So rude are they! I have seen less of those lately and I can honestly live with them. It's the other critter that I am having a problem with. It's the MICE. So yeah, early in our stay in the new Prince home, we would see tiny brown mice every now and then, one even deciding to hang in our living room for a couple nights, scurrying around. I can't blame him for wanting to watch tv, but he just wasn't invited. They pop up every now and then and we put out more rat poison and then don't see them for a while. They don't really use traps here, and I am fine with poison, I just imagine they evaporate into mouse heaven.

OKAY, so here is the story to tell you how WILD these animals really are. On Tuesday night I had a young girl in the church over for dinner. I am eating and talking with Stacy and see something out of the corner of my eye in the kitchen. "Did you see that," I ask. "What..." asks Stacy as she is RUDELY interrupted by a MOUSE scurrying from one cabinet to another. We scream a bit, and say EWWW and she tells me about some random thing her mom does and puts out pepper on the floor when she sees a mouse. So I do that obviously, and it makes sense, pepper is strong and these guys are obviously on a munchie run, so hope they have to go home with pepper mouths to find water. That was the end of that. THEN, on Wednesday morning, Kieren and I are hanging out, she's walking around and in the living room, and I'm getting something in the food cabinet, then decide to clean up some of the randomness in there and am throwing out a few things and organizing, and BAM!! Are you ready for this?? BAM! A mouse JUMPS OUT the cabinet and ON TO ME. Take that in a moment. The mouse jumps ON ME! I jump up and it jumps off and back to it's other cabinet home. I really couldn't even scream, checked my robe pockets for the next hour to make sure it wasn't there, and just felt dirty with the memory stain of the weight of the mouse on my chest. WHO DOES THIS GUY THINK HE IS?? I mean, he is already in the cupboard eating our chips (at least he picked a bag that was old, I was about to throw it out) BUT STILL. YUCK.

YUCK.

I CAN FEEL THE WEIGHT OF HIM RIGHT NOW.

So just wanted you to know. We may be in city Africa, but it's still Africa. And the animals are WILD. Beware.

Lots of love,
Sarah