Praise the Lord...Let's plug stuff in!!

Well, it's been an interesting past couple of days. The power in Arua has been off since Thursday afternoon which made for some dark nights and dead batteries. Lucky for us we don't have an electric fridge or anything like that so the only thing that we had to be careful with was our phones. We found out on Friday evening that the power was going to be off until Sunday and realized that both Mandy's and my phone had very little battery power left. Being at the house without the Cassels still, we wanted to make sure we had access to a phone if we ever needed it so we conserved battery power as much as possible. We were doing fine for the first couple of days but when the power still hadn't come on by Monday afternoon, we were getting a little frustrated. Both of our computers were dead so we couldn't do any work, Mandy's phone had died completely, mine was on its very last leg, and we were tired of reading by flashlight! We sat down for lunch on Monday afternoon and were talking about the power, saying things like “ok, you can come on now” and “I'm ready for the power to come back on” when all of a sudden it came back on!! We were so excited! We had been wanting to charge our phones and our computers for a while and the first words that came out of my mouth were, “Praise the Lord...let's plug stuff in!” So we both scrambled to our feet and got everything plugged in. The power only lasted about 45 minutes but hey, it still came on. It ended up coming back on at about 8:30 that night and stayed on ALL NIGHT! The power is NEVER on all night – unless the president is in town, but he isn't so I figure they are just trying to make up for the last week but we are ok with that.
That is not the only exciting thing that happened this weekend. I'm sure you've all heard lots of “missionary stories” of people killing giant spiders or finding random animals in their bedrooms and guess what? I'm going to add another one of those stories to your list. This weekend Mandy and I found a snake in our kitchen! Yep, a snake! Here's what happened...
So it's Saturday morning, and the house is pretty quiet. We got up at a decent hour but with the power off, we were opening all of the shutters and main doors to let light in. I was in our bedroom when all of a sudden I hear this huge gasp! Sometimes Mandy scares herself with nothing so I thought was just one of those times again but I was wrong...very wrong! She came flying out of the kitchen yelling “There's a snake in our kitchen! There's a snake in our kitchen! There's a snake in our kitchen!” I came out of our room and met her in the dining room where I was like “Where? Where? Where is it????” only to find Mandy staring at me, hand over her mouth, unable to say anything, pointing towards the kitchen. There is a door going from the dining room to the kitchen but there is also a window in one of the walls so we both jumped up on chairs to peer through the window to get a better look at what was invading our space. And sure enough slithering along the floor was a black snake. I didn't have my contacts in yet so I couldn't see every detail of the snake, but it was DEFINITELY there! We both sort of froze, not knowing what to do, watching it slither its way into our pantry. Great...a snake in our pantry! Now what? It wasn't huge, maybe a foot long and an inch thick but a snake is a snake and we are no experts on what is considered harmless or dangerous. The funny thing is that the day before, Mandy and I were walking home from our language lessons and one of us had commented that we were surprised we hadn't seen a snake yet...little did we know we had one living with us!
We went back into our room still in disbelief that there was a snake in our house. I don't know how many times that morning we would turn to each other saying, “I can't believe there's a snake in our house!” We've had a little toad that has wanted to share the house with us but we have not given in to him yet. He's come in quite a few times and no matter how far away we throw him, he comes back time and time again. He jumped across Mandy's feet the other night, in the dark, freaking her out pretty good. A toad we can handle...but the snake was a whole different ball game.
So, knowing the snake was somewhere in our pantry, among the mess of boxes and tin cans, we decided to stay clear of the kitchen as much as possible. I texted Pam Wafler to see if she had any ideas and not even a minute later Pam was on the phone panicing, making sure we were ok! We assured her we were fine and told her what we saw so she called one of the other missionaries, John Vandermeer, to find out what to do. This was the advice she was told to pass on to us:
“Back the snake up into a corner, pour some kerosine on it to stun it a bit, then pick it up and throw it outside.” Uh, no thank you!! My immediate response was, “Does John realize that we are 20 and 23 and girls??? There's no way we are doing that!!” So Pam and I chatted for a little while and decided that she would see if her boys would want to go on a snake hunt once they got up. A little while later she invited us over for pancakes and told us the boys would come back with us and find the snake. So before walking over the the Wafler's, following her sons' advice, we put some flour in the doorway of the pantry so we would know if the snake had left that room. Mandy and I were secretly hoping that if the snake did decide to leave the pantry, that it would roll in the flour so we would know exactly where it went. We were NOT ok with a snake just hanging out somewhere in the house. We had decided that we would not sleep at the house until we knew it was gone.
We had a great breakfast with the family, talking about all sorts of crazy stories and things that they have experienced and heard about in the 7 years they have been here. After we were all full, Stan and Jacob, Pam's husband and 13 year old son, put on closed-toed shoes, got some sticks and a “slicer” and came to our rescue. When we got to the house, we did not find any 'snake prints' in the flour we had left in the doorway so we were pretty sure our little friend was still in the pantry. But just to be safe, we did a full check of the kitchen, lifting the stove and looking in every possible crevass. We found no surprises so it was time to tackle the pantry. There were four of us, each carrying some sort of blunt instrument, ready to pounce at the first hint of any movement. Well, I would love to say that I was really brave and standing on the front lines, but I can't. I couldn't decide if I should run for my life or if I should stay and watch what was going on! Stan and Jacob got right in the pantry, though. Stan started to pull boxes out and move things around to see what he could find while Jacob held a flashlight for him to see (the power was out remember? That just added to the adventure). The guys had moved a bunch of stuff out of the pantry when all of a sudden Jacob was like, “I saw movement! Something's there!” We all sort of jumped back because Jacob was the only one who saw it but went back in only to realize it was...the toad!!! So not only was there a snake in our pantry, apparently we were housing other animals as well! Bad day!
Not long after getting the toad we found the snake! We all jumped back yet again at the initial sight of it but didn't want to lose it so Stan and Jacob started poking and proding with their sticks. Conveniently for the snake we have a wooden shelving unit in the pantry and there was just enough room between the wall and the wood for the snake to fit in. Now what?? This snake was hiding and we couldn't get at it! We saw a little hole in the wall near where the snake had gone and feared it had escaped but it didn't, thankfully. Jacob poked one last time behind the shelving unit and trapped the snake! Woo hoo!! The guys were scrambling and moving about trying to get the snake in an open area while Mandy and I were flying around the kitchen trying to find a jar for them to put it in. I'm sure we were quite the sight! My heart was pounding like mad but calmed down a few minutes later when the guys came out with the snake in the jar! Yay!

We all gathered around and inspected the little guy for a bit, trying to figure out what kind of snake it was. We had no idea so Jacob took it home to see if he could find it in their book of snakes. It turns out it was probably just a garter snake, but I am quite glad it isn't in my house anymore!