Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Rains Finally Came!

The rains are two months late.

Planting is late.

Everything is dry.

But on May 18th, God let it pour! It was several inches of much, needed rain.

It was a blessed sight the next day to see people digging up their gardens and preparing the soil for planting.

Then…it rained again and again.

I LOVE the smell of rain and the coolness and life it brings. How appropriate that Jesus is the “living water,” because He has a sweet fragrance, is refreshing to the soul and is THE life-giver.

Harvest will be late this year, but at least they will have one.



And of course, with the rain, came the termites.

The first night I could hear them hitting the back door, outside, underneath the light. I didn’t know how many there were until I saw their wings the next morning.
















































Patrick, our watchman, told me he had spent a lot of the evening catching them and pulling their wings off, so he could either eat them or take them home to his family.

As a side note, my friend Becky said that when a friend of hers came to visit in Uganda, he gathered up these wings and took them back and created beautiful works of art with them. I would love to see them.


The next day, we could hear the sounds of children around our home, calling the termites.



This is my first time to try to embed a video, so if this doesn't work, click HERE to see it on Youtube.


My children enjoyed collecting termites as well (although I didn't hear them singing this year). They collected during the afternoon around the house.

They mainly picked up ones that had lost their wings, but I'm glad to say that even the ones that still had their wings, they left intact. They were so excited when Patrick returned that evening. They ran to him with their containers, and handed him their treasures they had collected.

I heard him say, "Oh, these are the ones you don't cook. You just eat them."

One more reason I'm glad that when I ate termites at Florence's house, they were the kind you cook!

Patrick noticed as he walked around the back of the house that the dogs hadn’t eaten any of their food he had made that morning. I asked him if he thought they were okay or if they might be sick, and he said, “No, I think they got too full on termites last night.”

Who would have thought?


1 comment:

Bran said...

Yay for rain. We had a slight drizzle today and we were pumped. But, the termites...I don't think I could handle eating them cooked or uncooked.