House cleaning - 11 November 2003

Hello,

    Another 2 weeks and other stories ...

***** Twilight Zone/House Cleaning *****

    I live in a round hut with a grass roof in a
compound of 9 houses. In Africa it seems that
houses are set in compound style.
    My house is actually kind of nice as I have
placed some pictures on the wall and the
place is pretty cool on the hot days. It is
home.
    But ...
    I haven't been living alone ... I have had
company for about 2 months ... yup ... the
type of company that doesn't want to go
away ... yup again ... FROGS.
    When I lived in El Salvador I also had
guests of the frog type ... a little family of
about 5 frogs that would hop out at about
6 at night and return at daybreak. They
weren't really that bad ... it was kind of cute
to watch the Central American frogs ... it was
kind of like Ozzie and Harriet. As the little
family would hop out at night to go eat ... etc.
    But here ... it is a little different ... about
2 months ago I noticed a couple of frogs
hopping out of the house at night and figured
... it was like the Central American experience
and that I would have a few frogs.
    It didn't happen that way as after a month
it looked like there were 30 frogs coming and
going. Of course it ultimately hit a point where
there had to be at least 80 frogs in my hut.
    The last straw was when I got up in the
night and stepped on one (kind of a spongy
feeling under foot) ... that is where the lines
where drawn.
    So, the battle began ... the next day I started
taking everything apart and let me tell you ... they
were everywhere. Almost everything I touched jumped.
I am fasting for the holy month of Ramadan
and I am hungry, thirsty and hot. So  after about
an hour I clean up half the hut. In the afternoon I
start on the other side. This was the worst side
and actually took an hour and a half to evict the
little moochers. They were hopping everywhere.
    Everything seemed great till ... night time.
Here they come again ... I usually sleep with
my back door open and I even closed it to hopefully
prevent them coming in. Didn't work as in the middle
of the night I did a flashlight search and saw them
all over the place. What it was was the door of the hut
has an opening large enough to let about 5 in
at a time. So I get up ... place rags in the crack and
figure things are going to be OK. About 15 minutes
later I hear this scratching at the door. It was a real
freaky noise. I get up ... put on the flashlight ...
and see in the crack of the door the frogs stacked
3 high trying to get in. The creepy part was
watching the top frog with one eye and a hand
reaching through the crack. I thought that this
was like one of the horror movies.I opened the
door and there was about 20 frogs trying and
waiting to get in. I took my broom and I thought
that I was shoveling crap against the tide as as I
evicted 1, 3 others sneaked in. Finally after an
hour it was under control.
    So next night I am sitting in the back yard
with my counterpart Demba and the frogs start
coming back again. Each one that enters I chase
down and kick them out. Then Demba says
" Ado jogii lamndam" ... do you have salt?
So he takes the salt and throws it in the corners
under the bed ... etc. He says " watch this" ...
I'll be damned but the frogs entered and then
came hopping out like the had 4 hot feet.
I mean that they flew out of there. We sat
there for 2 hours not saying a word and just
watching the action. I guess that is stuff
one does when there is no TV or electricity.
Watching a frog control system in action
... salt.
    I just sat there thinking that if I was in the
developed world I would have gone to Home-
Depot and bought some high tech laser guided/
collateral damage proof/environmentally friendly/
low impact frog eviction system.
    Needless to say I was tickled to see that
about 4 cents worth of salt did the job just fine.


***** Ramadan and a New Respect *****

    It is the holy month of Ramadan and this is
my first experience with anything Muslim. So,
seeing as I am the only non-Muslim in the village
for about a week leading up to Ramadan I had
everyone asking me " A hodat?" ... am I going
to fast. Fasting is from daybreak to sundown
(more or less) and it consists of not eating and
the worst, not drinking. So I said "haa" ... yes
I am going to fast.
    Let me tell you ... I have a really truly new
found respect for the Muslim people and Ramadan.
Let me say it this way " it ain't easy". It is hot, and
we still work , though slower, by the afternoon I
just lay around reading and sleeping. People
lose patience and actually had 2 wives of the
same guy go at it pretty good. They brought the
bleeding one to my hut for treatment and she
had a 3 inch cut over her brow as the #1 wife
hit her with a stick but #2 wife dislocated
the elbow of #1.
    Ramadan is actually a month of Peace and
tranquility, of giving and of not speaking badly
of others. The incident above was actually the
first time anything like that happened.
Oh yeah ... the argument ... #1 wanted #2
to go get water at the well.
      I am glad that I am fasting as I can relate
to the people during the day and understand
and learn about what I don't know.
     I am not claiming to say that I know
everything about the Muslim religion but I am
learning.
    If only in the world today, with the problems
we have, people could walk a little in the
shoes of others and be able to understand and
relate to people with different beliefs.
    Maybe then we can get to the root of problems
instead of categorizing without knowing what we
are talking about.
    It is funny but I get asked about 20 times a
day if I am fasting and when I say I am, they
shake my hand and some even have said
"thank you".
    I guess there is many different paths in
this road of life ... I am learning that everyone
choses the one they want ... Peace.

Paul
Senegal
West Africa