Two minutes until the generator goes out and I'm plunged into darkness again with all of my critters. The bats are having a hay-day flying around out in the veranda, so I'm in my room... with my rat trap!

No rats even poked their noses into my room last night! So Templeton lived to seee another day. The trap is set again, but quite honestly, I'm not feeling too psyched up to go rat hunting tonight... hope I don't have to do the deed in the middle of the night... maybe just having the trap set will scare the poor little guy away!

I got out my light sleeping bag last night because I was COLD. Brrr. I can't believe that I'm sitting here in 27C thinking, hmmm... a little chilly tonight! This morning was 21C and I was too cold to poke my nose out of the covers. No wonder all the folks around here are getting sick. As long as I don't get the flu, too...

Went for a visit to the Ministry of Education today. I'll have to write about it tomorrow, as I'm about to lose the electricity for the night. Pray that I don't have to deal with any wildlife tonight - I just want to sleep in peace!

Despondancy

Grace left us on Tuesday morning :( Obviously, I've been a bit despondant since she left us, and there's been no fun to be had, so I haven't had much to write about!

But as soon as she left, man, I started a little home decor in our (er, MY) room. I now have a real desk to put my computer on! And Grace's rat, Templeton, has his very own bed to sleep in.

But not for long! The trap has been set:

Tonight is Templeton's last night. Do you hear me, little rat?! It's your last night, so hope you're saying your farewells! Templeton kept me awake last night and as I was laying there with my eyes open, watching his furry little bum skurry around my room, I was plotting how to get rid of him. Without Richard or Grace here to kill the little guy, I didn't want to be stuck with a sticky rat making noise in my room all night. So Jackie devised a plan, which I'm positive is fool proof - even if this rat is smarter than your average rat.

So the plan now, as you can see from the diagram above, is to wait for the little critter to go for the leftover noodle (mmmm, and what lovely noodles they are, too!), and get his furry little paws stuck in the glue, which is on the board inside the bucket.

Once he's stuck, voila, Tanya wakes up, gingerly places the tight fitting lid on the bucket and places him outdoors where he can't run away during the night.

In the morning, Tanya finds one of our compound boys to do the nasty deed, if Templeton does, indeed, survive the night in his little purple bucket. At least he'll have a nice noodle to munch on as his final meal.

And so, now that I have a purpose and a goal, I am despondant no more! But it still would be more fun to catch Grace's little rat friend if Grace were here with us :( Grace, we miss you! Please come home, Grace!

Body Guards

And here is the photo of the newest militia in the area:

Relaxation in Juba

Since we stayed up late last night watching a praying mantis devour a little fly, I had a bit of a lie-in this morning. I've never seen a praying mantis catch and eat a fly before. For a complete listing of all the "National Geographic" moments we've had around here, check out Grace's site: www.xanga.com/graceinuganda.

And now, since church is a bit of an effort, we've decided to just stay home again this morning... I know, we're a bit heathen. But it's really not all that relaxing to sit in a hot, packed church, listening to a sermon that you can't really make out... and we have our fellowship group this evening, which is really good.

And for some reason, the generator is on this morning, so I'm taking advantage of the electricity to check out what's online these days, and to add a little to Grace's story of our lovely afternoon on the banks of the Nile yesterday.

We finished our work in the morning, so for the afternoon, Grace and I decided to head over to the Mango Camp by the river and enjoy some cold Cokes. Mmm... Coke. It was so pleasant sitting there - the breeze was nice and cool off the river, we were sitting under the green mango trees, sitting back in our leather camp chairs, marvelling at how blessed we are to have the opportunity to do such a thing.

And our entertainment of the afternoon - a group of portly white guys trying their hand at fishing in the Nile. Needless to say, they were not very good. And i actually started to pity them a little, since they had quite the peanut gallery. Grace and I are learning from our own Dinka peanut gallery and are getting quite good at peanut gallery-ing!

There was a moment of suspense when one of the fisherman got a bite. The whole peanut gallery watched with bated breath while he struggled to real in his catch. It was quite the struggle between fisherman and the catch... and when he finally landed the pair of underwear that he had been struggling with, there was an audible giggle from the peanut gallery. I wonder what he was using for bait in order to catch such a lovely pair of underwear?

So now I'm off to do something a bit more, um, well, spiritual than write about floating underwear on the Internet :) It's not very late in the morning yet, but it's pretty warm already. Seems like it's going to be a hot day... perfect for sitting in the shade, listening to some John Piper and reading a book... I love Sundays!

"Real" Work!

This evening, we engaged in some "real" work - we went with our Dinkas to visit some informal literacy classes that are going on here in the city. It was so interesting to see the classes and to see how they teach. It was as I had feared - lots of repetition and pointing with big sticks. But the people are so motivated to teach - the volunteer teachers are doing their best with few resources. In each class that we visited, we asked how many of the learners are also attending a local government run school. While the majority of the classes that I visited were made up of school-age children, only a very tiny minority of them are actually attending the government classes. And this is here in the "capital" city! Imagine what the situation is like out in the villages where people are just starting to return after so many decades of school. The situation here is pretty desparate in terms of the education system.

We are hoping to help this group in the coming year with a little bit of teacher training and helping to provide them with some books to use. The teachers who are there are already very motivated and are faithfully doing what they can, so it would be a pleasure to work with them and be involved a little bit. Plus, it's a great opportunity for me to a little more "hands-on" involved in a local school, which I have never really had the opportunity to do. All in all, I think it could be a very fruitful partnership for all of us.

I wish that I had some photos that I could post of these classrooms, but I didn't really want to go in there and start snapping photos like a tourist. Since it was our first visit to the classes, we were trying to be as unobtrusive as possible - not easy to do in a place where the "kawaija" get "greeted" by everyone on the street!

Perhaps I've already been of some help - a few of the older ladies in one of the classes asked me if I had any eye glasses for them. I obviously don't carry around that many extra pairs of reading glasses in my back pocket, but I did notice that the room in which they were studying was rather dark. So I suggested that perhaps it might make it easier for the ladies to see if they changed to a different room with bigger windows or even sat outside under the tree where it was lighter... they thought that was a pretty good idea. So maybe I've done some good tonight... :D

Thanksgiving!

In honour of Grace, our American, and Erin, the other American on the compound, we celebrated Thanksgiving today.

It was truly an all day event. This morning, we went to the market, haggled over the price of beef for the hamburgers that we planned to cook, and bought a whole swack-load of delicious fruits and veggies.

Grace and I also did a little Thanksgiving splurge on new outfits. The shoes are posted here, but the full outfits will be modelled and posted tomorrow, enshallah. So check back here tomorrow.

I spent most of the afternoon single-handedly peeling enough potatoes to feed the 17 hungry tummies that we had invited for Thanksgiving potluck. It was a tough job, but I had my MP3 player belting out the Christmas tunes to get me in a festive mood.

Thankfully, it wasn't too hot out this afternoon, either, so I didn't even work up too much of a sweat peeling the potatoes!

All those potatoes made an awful lot of compost, so I had to make a cross-compound trip to deposit it. Of course, being the good African woman that I am, I had to carry the bucket on my head. Of course, being the good American that Grace is, she had to take a photo of me carrying the bucket on my head.

Anyways, we had a wonderful meal with all sorts of people from all over the world, gathered together around a long table, enjoying the bounty that God provided for us. God has been so good to us!

And now, I'm off to sleep... hopefully I'll sleep better than I did last night. As I was laying down to go to sleep, some kind of creature started making an awful lot of noise. I was thinking it was probably the rat with our rat trap glued to his foot... but maybe it was just a lost bat trying to find his way home... But I am extra-specially thankful for my mossy net which puts a small barrier between me and all the crazy nocturnal creatures that roam the room after we turn out the lights!

Potty Pictures

On the subject of the last post, you should check out Grace's comments on the defEcating done around here... she has some grand photos of various toilet poses...

Oh, I have so much to say... but Richard is going out on some errands, so I must follow along while I have the chance! He's going back home tomorrow... I think the generator will be a bit lonely without him!

Bad Behaviour

I just read on the Internet that Calgary passed a new by-law: it is now illegal to spit, fight, urinate or deficate in public in Calgary.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/20112006/3/canada-calgary-passes-public-behaviour-bylaw.html
If they passed a law like that here, well, even all the children would be fined! Just the other day, Jackie asked Richard what is the "polite" and culturally-sensitive thing to do when we catch people urinating and deficating in front of our gate. Seems like you can just tell them to go away... hopefully they'll pull their pants up first...

Containers

An oft-heard phrase around the city.

"Where's Jackie?"

"She's in the container."

Basically, anyone or anything can be in one of many containers. There are a lot of containers, and everything from offices to gas stations are housed in big shipping containers.

A hot Monday afternoon

We've just finished our newly instituted weekly staff meeting. Richard was climbing the water tower to figure out why we didn't have any water in the tank, but we still met without him. In the background, I'm hearing the hum of the small backup generator, and the occasional "boom" of the UN blowing up some ammunition outside the city. Grace is painting her boards, and I'm just sitting here sweating :)

We've decided that we're the ones who get to start all the "systems" around here. So we've instituted Monday staff prayer meetings. So far, so good! It's quite exciting, actually, to be here at the beignning of a new thing!

This morning as we were going out our gate with Richard to go change some money and stuff, we met a woman and a few men carrying hoes and going towards our gate. Of course, Richard being the astute observer that he is, stopped to ask them what they were doing. Turns out ,they were coming to build a house in front of our gate! Seems the land that we use as a driveway to the compound had been given to this woman to use to build her house on. Of course, this is our only gate and our only way in and out of our compound, so we would be in a little bit of trouble if, indeed, this land belongs to the woman for her house!

It's a good thing MAF shares our compound, 'cause if we can't get out the gate, maybe they can send a helicopter in to rescue us.

Another thing we noticed today, as we were all following Richard around the compound like little ducklings trying to figure out why there was no water coming from the tank, was that the dirt around one of the houses was very nicely swept. "Nicely swept dirt", commented Grace. Not a phrase you hear every day in other parts of the world.

One of the sad things I saw today as we were out "borrowing" parts for the generator, was a group of children playing "soldier". They were all lined up in a line, marching with their "guns" slung over their shoulders. I think it's rather sad that such small children know how to line up and march in formation. They've seen much too much war.

A quiet Sunday evening

Here I sit on our little veranda, slapping the mosquitos and enjoying the wireless Internet.
I think the electrickery will be turned off soon, but I may as well update the blog while I'm here...

We're sitting here thinking about what to put on my next "prayer card" to get the most effective prayers... Here are the ideas:

1. Me in a John Garang t-shirt carrying a big gun - would fit right in with the local population.

2. Me carrying boards that Grace has painted white.

3. Me sweating.

4. Me and a big rat glued to a board.

5. Me washing my clothes with a big stick and a plastic tub.

6. Me driving on the right side of the road on the wrong side of the car.

7. Me sweating with our dinky Dinka.

8. Me putting up a tent with help from our Dinkas.

9. Me sweating on the way to the market.

10. Me posing in front of a car in a tree.

Perhaps I'll post some more samples in the coming days and we can have a vote.

A Sunday Walk in the Park

This morning, instead of going to church (yeah, we were being heathen missionaries), we went for a walk around the neighborhood, mostly to go and see the truck that started growing out of the tree on Friday.

As we were coming home from the UN compound on Friday evening, I was driving, and doing a good check for oncoming vehicles at the uncontrolled intersection, and I spied with my little eye an SUV in a tree. But since it was getting dark and we were hungry, we just came home, wondering where we could get seeds for our own SUV tree.

Then, last night, at our compound Indian-themed dinner, the neighbor mentioned the truck in the tree as well. So we decided this morning that we needed to investigate this phenomenon a little further.

So we all donned our hats and sunglasses and off we trooped for some excercize, fresh air and some new sights. And sure enough, the truck had not yet been harvested from the tree. For some reason, the driver of the truck had not been driving on the real road. He must have hit some boulders off in the grass and got launched up into the tree! Only in Juba.

We actually had quite a pleasant walk. It wasn't outrageously hot, though I was, well, um, sweating a little once we got home :) But that's nothing new around here!

For the rest of the afternoon, we just read a bit, slept a bit, and now, since the generator's on, Internetted a bit! The Sunday afternoon fellowship will begin soon, so I should go and take a shower and put some clean-ish clothes on! Cold showers are becoming my favorite part of the day! One task we didn't do yet is decide where to put the rat glue!

Grace's Rat

So, as a trial run, because I want a new blog that lets me post pictures, I'm starting this one... we'll see what happens. Just as an attention grabber, I'm sticking on a photo of Grace and her favorite rat. It happened to be the rat found under the sink of the neighbor's house. I think she's going to go hunting for the rat that was peeking at Richard in his room this morning. What would we do for entertainment around here without the rats?!