Of Coming to Terms
The front view of our house. Notice all the bare ground just waiting to be tracked in!
Date of original journal entry: Saturday October 30, 2010
Living between the jungle and the desert has taught me that sometimes it really is alright to compromise my self-imposed standards for house keeping. This brings a measure of sanity which is otherwise perilously close to being lost. But I still set the terms and boundaries for the peaceful coexistence with the local environment.
There are the little spiders who live mostly on and around the window screens. “Fly fishing” is good there and the spiders’ voracious appetites help with these beastly winged devils. The spiders build no web and do me a service. Besides, they are rather interesting to watch as they stealthily approach and pounce on their victims. I’ve learned that I would probably lose the battle if I tried to keep them all out. Terms of compromise: They can stay.
The dogs chilling on the veranda. They bring in a lot of sand especially during the rains. But they also kill mice, lizards, and snakes so I don’t mind the dirt.
Ants are the night shift of the clean up crew. They can dismantle and completely dispose of roaches, wasps, and other fairly large insect bodies in just a few hours. They also help clean up the hoards of smaller deceased insects. These are just tiny ants who come in through microscopic holes in our cement walls; no winning this battle either. Unfortunately they also like sugar. Terms of compromise: I leave you alone if you stay out of my sugar.
Just inside the front door and to the right is my kitchen.
I don’t have to battle too much with the ants because there’s always a great harvest of dead insects. Throughout the house I have strategically placed cans of insecticidal spray called Spirit-Ex; I like the name and does it ever work! I use this for the daily droves divers sorts of flies and wide variety of hornets, wasps, and other large flying insects. It’s also the only defense against the very large, very fast, and VERY creepy spiders for whom the only compromise is swift and certain death with a large dose of Spirit-Ex. At night our solar lights attract a great host of tiny insects against which our screens are useless and some of them bite – HARD! These come in the night and perish in the night so no Spirit-Ex required. But in the morning their bodies cover the floor and any horizontal surface. Consequently the ants dine well and mostly leave my sugar alone.
The other half of the kitchen.
Then there’s the worst: lizards! They like to slip into the house and reside behind the plethora of boxes, bins, and other stored items. Though they marginally help with the bug infestation, their large droppings make the house smell like a gerbil cage and they often die and turn to shoe leather in the most inopportune place. Then I have to move the afore mentioned stacks of boxes to clean. Terms of compromise: None! Stay out or die. Stephen gets a good dose of comic relief watching me chase them intent on smashing them.
But this raises another issue: the house cleaning is positively endless. First thing in the morning its bug body detail. Later, to work at my drawing table I first must spend 20 minutes or more cleaning up the nightly bug fallout; I keep my drawing table covered with a sheet when not in use but it’s still a project to make it ready for the day’s work. To cook, the already-clean pots, pans, dishes, and utensils must be rinsed before use. The intense rainy season brings a constant trail of wet sandy grit to the tile floor while the opposite extreme of the dry season brings the harsh northeast Harmatan winds carrying great sheets of sand and endless dust from the Sahara Desert. The cleaning could be interminable to the neglect of the real work. Terms of compromise: We are sanitary but decidedly not clean. But I can live with that!
Ah, the romantic spiritual life of the foreign mission field.
In the door and to the left are my art studio and print shop. As with the kitchen, lots of places for critters to take up residence.
