Intuitive head covering and a ninja rat...

This is possibly not the best place to start my blog, but it is the most immediate in my mind. I am staying at the orphanage with Grace and John and the kids. Which is great... will tell you about that later. However at 4 am this morning, 55 hours in to the 3 months I am planning to spend in Kenya, there was a big thud next to my head on the bed. There is a beam that runs above my bed and it is now also know as the Rodent Super Highway. Yes folks, that's right a ninja rat (with bad aim) did a swan dive off the beam and nearly hit me in the head. I can't see any of this because it's pitch black in my room. So I jump out of bed and grab the flashlight (no electricity yet at the farm) and there goes a three inch + tail ninja rat scampering across my along the side of my bed. I let out one scream to which John asks from the next room, "What's wrong?" "A RAT!" I yell back.Silvia, one of the orphans, comes in from her bed room to try to find it but its gone. (At least I hope it was gone.) Grace comes in and puts rat poison under my bed. She asks emphatically, "will you be able to sleep now." "Absolutely Not!" I said.

Interestingly enough, I had the night before, slept with my black shawl over my head like you might put a newspaper over your head in a rainstorm. Mostly because the pillow Grace gave me to use is more reminiscent of something a Geisha would sleep on and not the soft pillow I'm remembering fondly on my bed at home.
So the shawl became both pillow and head covering... I didn't know how necessary the head covering would become. Also had I been laying a few inches to my right facing the wall, the rat would have landed on my head.

So I probably won't get much sleep until that rat (drinks the kool aide, so to speak) but I thankful for one very important thing... It wasn't a snake! Those also make an appearance once in a while under someones bed. And I missed the lice epidemic that swept through Kimuka (where the farm is located) recently.

So God is good! And life goes on.

And to my pastor who once referred to my travels as glamorous - think again!