April 18, 2008

There’s a monster gecko in the living room, a grasshopper the size of my hand in Florence’s bedroom, and a dead bat in the bathtub. We have to keep the bathroom door shut with a magazine to keep the bats roosting in the roof from coming down through the ceiling and into the rest of the house. The bats have been in the roof for who knows how long and the weight of their droppings has caused the ceiling to sag in the upstairs bathroom. Apparently some bats get lost in the bathroom and are unable to get out. I can hear their high squeaky voices at night when they are going out to hunt for food. My closet has three holes in the ceiling and droppings on the floor, so I keep that door shut too.

A short tour of Makuma village brought us to the pharmacy. As the local clinic had a mean nurse who didn’t like to give out medicine or help the villagers, the local church had set up a small pharmacy with the help of the missionaries. The little shop was run by the preacher’s wife, Diana, who was receiving training in health education.

Within minutes a man came in with a dead scorpion dangling between two sticks. He had been bitten on the stomach while picking up a bundle of straw with the creature inside. He showed us the welt on his stomach from the stinger. A six month old baby had already died this year after being stung by a scorpion. Deaths from scorpions seemed to be going up, although it was unusual for the sting to be fatal in an adult. Diana handed over the proper medicine.