Its a Jungle Out There

These past two weeks I have had some interesting run ins with animals in and around the village.

The first incident happened a week and a half ago when I was one the bus coming back from Mbeya. The second half of the trip I got the chance to sit in the cab with the driver my friend. When I got in there I noticed that there was someone else who would also be sitting up there with me and subsequently had a chicken in a bag with its head sticking out. When the other passenger got in I realized she had a lot of luggage and I offered to hold the chicken because lets face it its not something I haven’t done before and this one seemed pretty calm. Well things were going along smoothly with my new friend and I, I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t try and pet it, it was soft. An hour into our three-hour trip I noticed that the sack had gotten heavier. At first I thought it was just some droppings and was thankful that the bag was there. After awhile I realized that it was an egg in the sack. I was really taken aback/semi grossed out by it but at the same time I thought it was funny that the chicken felt cool enough with me to lay an egg. I was slightly mad that the lady wouldn’t let me keep the egg but you cant win them all right?

The second run in was at my house last Thursday afternoon. Gretchen had gone to a friends house and there they gave her some beans still in their pods for us. Learning from past experiences we knew that you must to dry the bean pods/ beans out before trying to store them or else they get moldy and start sprouting. Thursday morning we laid the beans out and when I came home nit he afternoon things were promising. I sat down to read a book and then I heard a strange noise. When I looked outside I saw one of the massive birds that live in the tree outside our house. These birds are not your normal birds these things are MASSIVE. Good hornbill and that’s the closest things I can think of that resembles these things. I am no bird watcher but I know that these things have huge beaks that look like they could crush my arm. Anyway I see one of these guys out there eating our beans and being semi scared/fond of my arm I yelled shoo and then threw our little broom thing at it. it eventually left after it had gotten its fill of beans. Later that night I was telling Mr. Mbughi and his wife and she informed me that there was no way that the bird was eating the beans because they only eat meat. This fact alone solidified my fear but at the same time I hope that one day he walks out and sees the birds eating her beans because I have learned that they in fact love them.

Finally the last little run in I had Saturday night after dinner. I was taking the pots out to clean when we finished eating and of course it was dark out so I had my headlamp on. I was walking in our hall to the back door when I noticed something on the ground that caused me to jump WAY back. Slizzering on the ground was either the biggest worm I have ever seen, ever or some kind of snake. As a side fact to of my biggest fears are snakes and spiders. I jumped on the chair still holding the pots and made Gretchen shoo it out of the house. It was a nasty bluish gray color and was slizzering mad when she started to push it with the broom out of our house and compound. The rest of the night I was terrified to go back outside because I didn’t want to see that nasty little guy. Its bad enough I have massive spiders on my wall, I have learned to live with them, but a snake thingy no way