You've seen it before.

Once again, I'm posting a silver-cheeked hornbill on the blog. This time along with a better photo I have a little video. God's creation is fascinating and sometimes funny to watch. Listen to the sounds as you wait for the hornbill to poke its bill out of the branches for a berry. Furahia (Enjoy.)

Angaalia siafu!

Angaalia siafu! Beware. Safari ants! Also called "army ants". I took this video along the road as we walked to the "lake." (Photo of lake below.) In Zambia we called them impagi (not sure I got the spelling right). In 1998 impagi/siafu came through our yard and completely cleaned-up the roach infestation in our home. The funny thing is that the roach infestation was so bad that nothing was working. So I began to pray about it. Well, I didn't know God would send the impagi or siafu to do the job. But that is exactly what happened. In the rural areas people will move out of their homes for a couple of days and let the ants do the work. The ants do not stay. They march through cleaning up anything that is edible to them. Back in 1998 I saw the roaches running through the grass trying to get rid of the ants that clung tenaciously to their legs and all over their backs. John make the remark today, "Too bad we don't have a big fat roach to drop into the ants." By the way, you don't want to stand too close and have some begin to crawl up your leg. It was either son 1 or son 2 or maybe both that had that experience growing up :(

About the lake. This is normally DRY ground. One of the lecturers here said that the last time she saw it like this was back in 1982! Many of you have already received my prayer request regarding the rain here. If I see any photos of the dams, I'll be sure and post them. God has blessed the rains down in Africa. Now we need a little sunshine!

What do you have in your hand?

A very short story about a new friend. I'm not going to give all her story as it is very complex and at points distressing. Let me shorten it to say that this woman in the depths of despair and poverty heard God say something like what He said to Moses back in Exodus, "What do you have in your hand?" That staff Moses had in his hand was going to be used to display a little bit of God's power to Pharaoh and the people of Israel. Well, my friend in a dirty refugee camp heard God say the same thing to her. What did she have in her hand? Paper. Bits of paper were all over the camp.

The photo shows you what she makes with her hands with paper and has now trained hundreds of other poor women and HIV+ women to make in order to have their daily bread.

Iko chui moja (There is one leopard)

Last night a visitor entered our garden from the dirt road behind our house. Apparently it jumped onto the roof of a shed in our backyard and then dropped down into the garden. It then made its way over to the neighbors' yard walking around their house several times. They had been keeping chickens (which by the way were getting into our garden and eating our sukumawiki) but apparently they have taken the chickens to their new home where they plan to move in a month. Anyway, from there the leopard prowled on down to some staff housing jumping onto the flat roof and awakening rafiki mwangu (my friend) at 3AM. She had no idea what it was but she knew it was something big.

John took some great photos of the tracks. He found the tracks after our neighbor (and colleague) told him at work that she thought there had been a leopard in her yard. John wanted to see the tracks, so they went up to her house. John then got our mammal book and compared the tracks to the book and also measured them. They matched with the description of an adult leopard's. He then looked in our yard and pieced together what seemed to be the sequence of its entry. After further checking he discovered it had gone onto the main campus. I say, well done, Sherlock! As far as we know it was not in the student housing area.

So the entire campus is on alert. Leopards are nocturnal, so the evening is when everyone must be careful. The wildlife authorities were notified but they have not visited the campus yet to set up a trap. Apparently, this is not the first time for a leopard to be on campus. I would love to get a photo of it, but I'm not willing to go out looking for it! Tutaonana. (See you later.)

Monkey business and an extra bill.

Monkey business! A whole troop of these guys are enjoying whatever free food they can find around here. At least they are not baboons. Baboons are aggressive and will attack you to get whatever food you have in your hands. One of our missionary friends in Zambia took his family on a picnic only to be bothered by baboons. In order to get them to go away he started acting like the big chief baboon moving towards them making loud noises and holding his arms out like some football lineman. It worked! The baboons ran away.

This strange looking bird is called a horn-bill, specifically a Silvery-cheeked Hornbill. The extra bill on top of the functional one gives a scary look to the shy bird. Such birds are as large as eagles but they are not predators and only eat insects and fruits. This campus is full of birds, so I'll be putting other bird photos on at another date.

The last interesting bit I want to add is a celebration of a marriage of one of the staff members here. He and his bride come from Ethiopia. At the party the Ethiopian contingency sang a song of blessing to them. The video is shortened to facilitate uploading from this end.

Bathroom blessings?

A hot shower. What a blessing! A toilet. What a blessing! (Yes, the photo is of our bathroom.) This isn't the typical kind of blessing that comes to mind when we are reminded during difficult times to count our blessings, is it? Today as I thoroughly enjoyed my hot shower I began to feel guilty knowing so many in the world live in areas where water is a big problem. Either they have to walk far to get it, or they have to pay what to them is a lot of money to have a bit of water for cooking or drinking. But then the more I thought about God in the whole scheme of things and His sovereign control, I thought the best thing I can do is to thank Him for the blessing of having a nice bathroom with running water and even hot water. I know not WHY God has blessed me. But I do know He HAS blessed me and that's all I need to know right now.

Hakuna shida

Hakuna shida. A friend told me today. "No problem." That's my phrase for you to tell your friends :) I have some interesting views for you today, friends, that I saw along the way to see son 2. Can you read the back of this matatu? Interesting acronym. In case you can't read it, it says: Get Higher Education to Teach Others (GHETTO).

The next photo is a HOTEL, though it is hard to read the entire word because of the angle of the photo. I'm still learning to be quick on the click. One thing to understand (I recently learned), when you see Hotel, that means food is served not that rooms are available. So think "cafe" instead.

Kufaidi. (Enjoy.)