God's Creation in Zambia

When you think of animals in Africa you think of the big ones:
elephants, giraffes, lions, hippos, etc. Well, today was a day for
some of the small animals of Africa. At school Mary came to me
carrying a large cup. I thought she was showing me something about
the cup. What I didn't see was a very, very small white toad on the
lip of the cup. It was about the size of your fingernail. Sharon J.
said that she thought it was some of the sticky stuff we use to put
papers on the walls and that she had touched it. She thought that was
pretty yucky.

Then this evening Benedict went to spray with bug spray the ants that
were beginning to form a line outside the wall to come into our house.
We know that we have bees in the roof of the verandah, but they keep
to themselves pretty much. Well, the spraying of the ants with bug
spray somehow set off the bees. So they began swarming like crazy on
the verandah. Fortunately, Benedict was inside by then. But as we
were eating supper several bees were in the dining area. The four of
us, Benedict, Sena, Isha, and I all decided we would rather take our
plates in our bedrooms and away from the bees. Benedict did get stung
once, and we called the Hamelryck's to make sure none of their kids
came over.

As we were eating our dinner in our bedroom, I looked at the wall. I
saw the tell-tell sign of termites, a brown mark going up the wall
from the floor. The kind of termites that come into the house are
actually very small, but they can be so destructive. So we will be
spraying them.

And even in Africa there are cockroaches. Fortunately we haven't had
a problem in our house. But today I had a couple of ladies cleaning
one of the houses so that we can set up a preschool type area for the
younger children. They had to spray and try to get rid of the
cockroaches in that house.

So you can see creatures great and small here. Both create problems.

Actually, before I finish I'm reminded of 2 large animals that were
dealt with on our property this week. Our big bull, the one that just
about charged me last year, was getting very mean and uncontrollable.
He had done a good job of creating babies, but we felt he needed to be
dealt with. So a man from Fringilla butchery came and shot him. They
took the bull and will cut it up for meat for our village and the
children. They aren't charging us for this, a blessing.

For a couple of weeks people have been seeing an African buffalo on
the property. They also can be dangerous. We have been either
driving the kids to school or having someone walk with them to school.
Tonight people from the Zambia Wildlife Department will be spending
the night and tracking the buffalo and probably killing it. They will
then give some of it to us and some to families in the area.