Living in “the bush” of Papua New Guinea, you expect to see lots of critters up close and personal. It seems like we’ve been having more close encounters than usual lately, so we thought we’d share some with you. Wa! Our boys have recently adopted two baby guinea pigs, offspring of the herd that our coworkers are “piggy sitting” for a while. Their names are Flash and Seth (formerly Sparkle, until we found out that it was a boy). They like to eat grass, carrot tops, lettuce leaves, and any other green thing we throw at them. They spend most of their time in their hutch but do like to get out and explore a bit when the kids will let them. We’re a little concerned that Maisie is going to love them to an untimely end, but we’re trying to teach her that guinea pigs don’t like to ride on swings or be picked up by one leg (or the neck). Miam! Last week we had two ladies come and stay with us to watch the kids while we met with consultants as a team. The kids had a great time, but one afternoon it was a little touch-and-go. The kids had all gathered in the upstairs of our coworkers’ house to play with the train set. The pieces were all piled in a big tote and the kids were all taking them out piece by piece and putting them together. After a while, Cole reached for a piece and noticed a snake in the box. Since it was a toy box, he naturally assumed that it was a toy snake. He touched it and it moved! The details of what happened next are a little fuzzy, but you can imagine what would ensue if a bunch of kids found a four-foot snake in their toy box. The only thing we know for certain is that Micah went and hid under the table! The babysitter came over to our meeting and calmly announced that she thought we should know there was a snake in the train box and that when we had the time we might want to come and get rid of it. Well, the dads went over wielding toy swords and shovels and did indeed “get rid of it”. Don’t worry, Grandma. Despite its intimidating size, the snake is a harmless one that usually lives in the walls and eats mice and rats. Təvəgəl! Oh, rainy season. How we dread your coming, with your wind and rain and mud and disturbing increase in insect activity! Every once in a while, especially during rainy season, we have attacks of what we call rain flies when the sun goes down. Since we have the only electric lights within who-knows-how-many miles, they are irresistibly attracted to us. Usually they aren’t a problem. We let them compete for the “I got closest to the light” award during the evening, turn the light off when we go to bed, and then sweep up the pile of dead flies in the morning. But last weekend things got a little ridiculous. I left the living room light on while I watched a movie in the kitchen, and when I was ready to go to bed I walked in there and saw a huge swarm around the light as well as a shimmering, shifting pile of them on the floor beneath it. I had never seen so many before and I didn’t quite know what to do about it. If I turned the light off I knew they would all fly over to the night light that is between our bedroom door and the bathroom. But I also didn’t want to leave the living room light on all night (owing to the fact that that our electricity comes from batteries that are powered by solar panels, and there usually isn’t too much sun at night). So I turned it off and went to bed, brushing the occasional wayward rainfly off my face as I tried to fall asleep. At about 1 am, I heard Chris get up and start spraying the cloud of bugs and sweeping them up in the hallway. He got two or three dustpans full before he came back to bed. In the morning they were everywhere. There was a little pile in every corner, they were scattered all over the rug, they were floating in the puddles in the bathtub, and they were piled up under the light bulbs. But the worst part was that some of them were still alive! With the coming of the dawn they flew up to our skylights and fluttered there until they were so close to death they could no longer fly, at which point they would fall down onto whatever was beneath them. Like my pot of mac and cheese. Or my bowl of bread dough. Or my hair. And it didn’t do any good to sweep them up until they were all dead because as soon as I got done sweeping more of them would have fallen. So we had to walk around on their rice crispy corpses all day and sweep them up the next day. Welcome to rainy season! So when are you coming to visit?