Saturday, April 16, 2016

A Rat/Gnat Welcome

So coming home has been interesting. Most of you enjoyed the pleasure of my whining and complaining on various social media outlets while we were "displaced" because of the recent murders, and I know you think I must be a such a good missionary* lady to long to be back in her jungle home. 

And I am… NOT. I have decided that unlike Paul, I have NOT learned to be content in every circumstance. In fact, I have a familiar tendency to be discontent for at least the first two weeks in any new circumstance and after that, when I settle into a routine, I do ok and until I am uprooted and have to change again. My mom is reading this and thinking, "You were always like this. You never liked change as a child." It's true. I still don't. 

So by the end of my four months out of my jungle home, I kinda got in a routine and liked it. I didn't really know this until I came back to the home I whined for and didn't have that routine anymore. At first it felt really nice to land on our grass airstrip and greet all our friends and feel that comfortable feeling of "home" and then I opened the door. 

I opened the door to the colony of spiders that had taken up residence in my house all simultaneously turning their heads and millions of eyes my way. I immediately went to war unwrapping everything in my house from the webs the spiders had spun in order to make it feel more homey to them. If they wanted it to feel  more spidery when you walk in the door and less humany then they certainly accomplished that goal. I definitely thought, "Wow, someone with eight legs is certainly responsible for this decor." 

Once all the spiders were evicted I went to work washing every single dish in my kitchen. Have you ever washed every single dish in your kitchen? No? Why would you? You probably live in a nicely sealed house that doesn't immediately get overrun with every kind of insect and vermin imaginable as soon as you walk out the door (and often while you are still in the door). While washing every single dish in my kitchen I discovered that rats decided to chew holes in almost every single piece of tupperware I owned. That made for less dish washing at least, but then I had to burn all that tupperware, and crawl half way inside the cabinet to clean up the confetti of masticated plastic and rat droppings left over from the tupperware eating party. There was a lot of gagging and repeating, "You wanted to be here. You wanted to come back" over and over. 

Then after I unpacked every article of clothing we owned, made the beds, and swept the roach poop out of every corner, I popped the casserole that I made before we flew back (because cooking from scratch after a day of cleaning up spider, roach, and rat poop is less than ideal) into the oven and was thankful for the first time for the tupperware destruction. My oven only smelled vaguely of rat pee. The last time we were gone for a long period (our furlough) the rats took up residence in my oven, and every time I turned it on the aroma of rat pee filled the house and made everyone gag. The tupperware cabinet was a happy alternative to that at least. 

At the end of the day, we all climbed into bed to watch a movie before going to sleep. It was at this point we noticed that dozens of biting gnats or "No Seeums" as we call them out here were flying around the room and biting us. We've rarely had them in the house, so we just brushed it off as a fluke and went to bed. 

Unfortunately, it was not a fluke. The little jerks have been invading my relaxing evenings every night since we got back. All I wanted to do was get in bed, watch old episodes of Project Runway sent to me by another missionary friend, and go to sleep. Instead I spend the evenings counting tiny red dots left by biting gnats and then turning off the lights while the last few stragglers bite at my face. The highest count so far has been 36. 36 bites in the span of 45 minutes. I feel like if they really worked together they could accomplish a bite a minute, but I am not sure if I should expect too much from something with the life span of less than 24 hours. Anyway, just after a week of being home I was tucked under my covers in the fetal position longing for my guesthouse in town with glass louver windows that I could shut and keep all nature out of my bed time routine. I no longer wanted to be back in my jungle home. 

I was Israel looking back at Egypt and thinking, "Sure we were slaves, but at least we had food to eat." And I am like this anytime I change places. Everywhere new is the desert. The last place I was comfortable is always Egypt. Sigh. Humans. The same issues since the beginning of time. The patience of God is incomprehensible. 

But the next morning I woke up, the red spots were gone, and I watched my kids take out everything they forgot they owned and dance around the house like it was Cinderella's castle. Nothing feels better to kids than home. And nothing feels better to Moms than when their kids feel at home. And just like that... the desert becomes the Promised Land. 

*Recently an article came out about my family and I that was picked up by a couple of internet media outlets, and it has made some people really mad and hate us for what we are doing here. Missionaries are apparently the worst. But, I seem to recall being warned about being hated by you know…JESUS, so it's no big deal. We knew the article was coming out and were able to read and approve it ahead of time, and really enjoyed working with the writer and editors of the piece. I really didn't think we would be interesting enough to be picked up by other news outlets though, but I guess people love to hate things, so it did. The beauty of being out here in this remote place with no internet is that I can't read all those ugly comments. Sorry internet haters. I won't be able to feel your wrath for another 4 months and by then I'm sure you will have already moved on to comment aggressively about something else you know absolutely nothing about! Ha ha! Foiled by the remote jungle and its lack of technology! 

2 comments:

  1. Oh yuck! Rat pee, gnat bites and spider infestations are not a fun way to return home, but I am glad that God was able to teach you a lesson through it. Also, I am sorry that people said mean things about you. It happens. This is why I almost never read comments on anything. Even Christian things. The anonymity of the internet has made people crazy and unaccountable, and that is not my cup of tea. So anyway, I hope everything settles down for you back in the jungle!

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  2. Enjoy the travel party at the end of night at boat tour I would really enjoy it please see new york city boat tour and NYC Adventure Tours

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