The Creature in the Corner

The place: Living room.
The time: Early morning during quiet time.
What I heard: An animal scratching in the corner of the room.

Here in Musoma we live very close to nature. If you leave a house vacant for more than a few weeks you are liable to return and find that it has already begun to be taken over by nature.
Lizards falling on my head as I open curtains in the morning...not an unheard of occurrence. Even a bat has taken the liberty of flying around my head, inside the house (although, he would come to regret that liberty the next day).

So, on Friday morning as I was having my quiet time I didn't leap out of my chair in terror when I heard the distinct sound of an animal clawing around in the corner of the room. I serenely eyed the corner to ascertain the source of the sound. I was bracing myself for a mouse, or even worse, a rat. What I discovered was not what I expected, but maybe I should have expected it. It was a hedgehog and hedgehogs are all the rage!

There is a trend amongst the missionary community here in Musoma to have a hedgehog as a pet.  The school where Crystal teaches the missionary kids recently found a hedgehog in the yard and have adopted it as the class pet. This past weekend the hedgehog made its home with us. I'd forgotten that he was coming to stay with us, but he has been a most hospitable guest (and very low maintenance...which is how I like it).

It is fun having an animal around, but I am glad that it is only for the weekend because I am not the most attentive care-giver. It spends most of its time sleeping in its cage but has also ventured out and nearly escaped under some chairs.

Lemon Tree

 This past weekend a friend pointed out the existence of a lemon tree in my yard. I don’t know how this tree had gone unnoticed to that point, but such is life. Sometimes we don’t know what we have available to us, even though it is staring us in the face...with bright yellow* fruit.

*The truth is that lemons here can be yellow, but often times remain green even when they are ripe.

This same friend challenged me to retrieve the top-most ripe lemon saying, and I quote, “I would pay money to see you get that lemon.” Well, get ready to pay up buddy!

There was some urgency in retrieving this lemon. The power was cut all day long this past Sunday and I needed lemon juice for cooking...and the lemon juice was in the fridge. Now, when power is cut and you have no idea when (or sometimes if) it will return you don’t open the fridge. EVER.
Thanks to the forethought of my house-mate Crystal there are pictures and even a video documenting the lemon-retrieval. Crystal was also the one to suggest using my truck ‘Aladdin’ to give me some additional height.

Then came the addition of a long pole with a hooked wire at the end to get the riper fruit higher up.

The wrap was worn so that the neighbors would not see me brazenly baring my knees.

That still wasn’t long enough for the lemon that was the ultimate goal. A second wire was found that was attached to the previous pole and wire...the following video will bear witness of my ultimately victorious attempt.

This one lemon provided all the lemon juice I needed for what I was cooking!

February 2013 Newsletter