mud mud mud

Bottles tumbled from the shelves in our shower-room, things shifted and tussled making an epic ruckus… Great.. another rat. Suddenly I heard a ‘pitter patter pitter patter’ on my floor of my room, and halting beside my bed. I lifted up my mosquito net and pointed my flashlight on what I thought would be the rat, but turned out to be one of the cats I let in with a giant rat in its mouth. It then went under my bed to have a feast… I let it crunch away not wanted to discourage it from a job-well-done, and put in earplugs to muffle the sound. Not trace of any rat in the morning, other then the evidence of the cats HUGE belly.

I was at a woman’s bible study yesterday morning, and had to leave in the middle of it for a doctor’s appointment. I was dropped off at the hospital to find out some results. Of course they were not ready, so, being too cheep to want to catch and pay for a chapa, I ‘apanhar uma balaya’ (hitched-a-ride) with a bicycler passing on the street. Amazingly I found my way back to the house, and didn't have to pay for chapa fair, and had a good conversation on the way.

The boys seem very exited to try new foods, and so I made a mango-cobbler last night, and today I made Chinese for lunch > fried rice.
They love to cook their concoctions with and for me too: mango jam, mango papa (like a mango hot cereal) and we roasted cashews.

A group of us decided to walk to the beach today. It was about a 2-hour walk there through mud and fields and forest, and mud, and mud, and hidden spiky-things under the mud. Every step in the muddy water just below the knees, one wonders if the next step will bring pain with a sharp piece of something or a soothing ‘slosh’ of soft mud. We made it and the ‘beach’ was mud not sand. One can literally sink up to their ears in mud! One of the guys dared to go in and he was the one carrying the portable radio. As he kept sinking, the radio was made sure to be kept up out of the mud, and his whole body except his head and one arm was out of the mud. What a sight! The radio was rescued first, then he was able to free himself.

At the ocean we met some local fishers who live in grass houses build on the shore, and the boys asked for free fresh fish. They succeeded, so we made a little fire and put the fish right on until ready to eat. That is what I call fresh fish, it was delish!

Just got in from a grand chicken run. Since tomorrow is the American Thanksgiving, Jon is going to celebrate and we had to find and catch 7 chickens for supper tomorrow!