Buja days

James, Lizzy, Carly, Danny, Cindy, Sarah and I at the ambassador's pool.

I'm staying with Austin while Dan and Tambry are in the States for a few weeks. Last week I worked in the mornings at WR until about 1:30 which is when Austin gets home from school. We would eat lunch together and then I would go the Rainbow Centre in the afternoons. I've enjoyed my time at the RC. One of the days I spent the afternoon helping the Johnson girls with their homework. Melli asked me to consider doing this to help her out. The girls are really great and although I've never been a teacher or tutor I think I'll enjoy the time spent with the girls. Sarah and Lizzy are both in grade 6; Carly is in grade 4; and Cindy is in Kindergarten. The other afternoons I spent with Melli helping to clear out some rooms at the clinic.

Austin and I went to Musee Vivant on Saturday for something fun to do. It's sort of like a zoo that's just down the street from the Brose's house. There are crocodiles, an alligator, monkeys, bats, and a bunch of really dangerous snakes. For about two dollars you can buy a guinea pig and feed it to a croc or snake. We bought two. The first one we fed to a croc. We think he had just eaten though because after he caught it and took it back to the water to drown it he let the turtles in the tank come and take it right out of his mouth and start snacking on it and he went back to snoozing. Kind of boring :( The other one we fed to a cobra. We watched it sneak up and strike with it's huge mouth and hold it while the venom did its work. Then the cobra moved around to the rodent's head and started swallowing. Weird! We also fed grass to the monkeys and clapped to make the bats (the size of seagulls) take flight. There are hundreds if not thousands of them that live there at Musee Vivant. I learned that the huge flocks of "birds" I thought flew over the Broses each night are actually these bats setting out for their nocturnal activities.

Rainy season is slowly coming upon us. The haze that forms from the heat and dust of dry season is a little thinner. Yesterday I was even able to see the vague outline of the mountains of Congo across Lake T. They're huge and looming and when you see how close they really are you realize just how thick the haze is. Every few days there is thunder and lightning and sometimes it even rains. It won't be long now before it will rain some almost everyday. Everyone says not to expect it to cool off though. It doesn't get less hot just more wet :) I am becoming accustomed to the heat though. The pool at the US ambassador's residence is open to American citizens until 6pm everyday.