KEEPING CONNECTED WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY!

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 - Teach Them Diligently

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Stories from Africa: The Long Drop -

Rural Out houses are called Long Drops:

I think because they are built up out of cement first of all they don't smell as bad as I would have thought.

Our Long Drop - Men's on left behind green curtain and women's on right 


When we arrived I didn't have a problem with the long drops but the longer we stayed the more the bugs started to get to me.   When we first arrived the cockroaches stayed in their corners - Danree would shine her light at them and yell, "I hate you, I hate you."  We all got a good laugh from her bathroom antics but I didn't really have a problem until the one night when this big cockroach ran down the wall and under my right thigh.  I was trying to hurry and then the cockroach ran back out.  After that my thoughts of the Long Drop were slowly changing to dread.  I once shared at our nightly meetings how if it was my Long Drop I would paint it white, put up curtains and I would kill the bugs.  I would use lime or lye instead of the bugs and maggots.

My Long Drop


Now in our food trailer I saw this can of bug spray but no one had used it.  I wasn't sure why and I thought of using it many times.  Our last night there I decided that I wanted to kill the bugs.  At first I wasn't sure if the Pastors wife would want me to use it and so I wasn't sure if I should use it and then apologies or if I should ask permission first.  Then as we approached the Long Drop I realized that the Pastor's family was in the peanut garden picking peanuts so Wesley who was so excited about killing the cockroaches ran up and said - we are going to kill the Cockroaches.  I then asked permission - saying "We have a can of bug spray can I kill the bugs?"  She smiled and gave me a big green light to kill them.  So we went to the Long drop and set about to kill the cockroaches.

The next morning I approached the Long Drop with a bit of glee and when I saw the three big cockroaches dead on the ground I was quite happy.  I had Jaco get rid of them for me and I happily used the bug free Long Drop - wondering why I hadn't used that spray the first night.  
Wesley and Irina both used the Long Drop without problems. 

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