Rambling About All Sorts of Randomness

Ok so there are days/weeks when life seems to be filled with such randomness all around me and I just wonder how these things can seem so “normal” to me when five years ago they would not have seemed that way at all. Well I guess that means that I am more settled in here to life in Tanzania than I realize. I have been making mental notes in order to share a few things from the past few weeks.
Here are a few:
1. There is a hedgehog pancake outside my front gate. Someone ran over a hedgehog in front of my gate…maybe it was me; maybe it was Jodie…can’t go blaming anyone at this point, right? The point is that this hedgehog pancake has turned into a magnet for all kinds of large, black, flying creatures…and it smells really bad!
2. Our grass is dead and it is not a pretty sight. I don’t know why our guard during the day, who by the way knows it is his job to water the lawn and keep it nice, isn’t doing his job and now our lawn looks really, really bad. We bought a new hose and everything. I asked our guard about it and he says he is on top of it…what exactly does he mean by that?
3. We have two cats at the orphanage. They used to belong to Jodie and me but there was a slight rat issue at the orphanage so we moved the cats (their names are Mr. Darcy and Cupcake) to the orphanage. The only problem is that Mr. Darcy doesn’t like to eat anything that I don’t feed him myself…I kind of spoiled him when he was living at my house. The workers at the orphanage all find it amusing how Mr. Darcy chases after the van when I drive into the orphanage. I find it embarrassing the way he meows at me non-stop asking me for food…yikes! I have created an annoying kitty!!!!
4. So I mentioned the slight rat issue in the above #3 like it is really a slight rat issue…is a rat issue ever a slight issue? Apparently it can be! I have had a rat run by my foot and once one ran in my office when I was at my desk working and I screamed and it literally did a 180 degree turn as I was screaming and ran out…that was kinda fun in a creepy, yucky kind of way!
5. It was raining the other morning and the vehicle I was driving was dripping water all over my lap and head and hands as I was driving and I just thought how it would be a good idea to put a plastic bag on my lap the next time…didn’t even give that nonsense a second thought.
6. The power was out last week and I had to make a photo copy of something so I drove all over town for more than an hour and stopped at least six or seven different places until I found a place with electricity and a copy machine that was working…because both of those things are hard to find sometimes. I got my copy made and then guess what? I did it again today! Yep, no power again and yep, driving around all over town until I was successful…the joy I feel in one photocopy!!!
7. Vehicle broke down last week…THREE TIMES! One of the three times we were stranded an hour outside of town for more than three hours. Pastor Kioko, Pastor Dave and Jodie were there so I enjoyed hanging out with them. Rita was there too with Clair Lee and Eli but they waved down a vehicle passing by and hitched a ride to town because they had a meeting to get to. We were still sitting on the side of the road when they were finished with their meeting so they got a ride back to the broken-down vehicle and then within 30 minutes it was running again. Rita treated us all to a very nice dinner when we made it back to town!!!