FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: FEBRUARY 2, 2014

BUSH BUNNY BACK WITH ONE LESS TOOTH

Was a 4 day marathon of den­tist vis­its, x‑rays, cone scan, and then final­ly the extrac­tion on Thurs­day. The nor­mal X‑rays didn’t show a prob­lem with the painful tooth, but the Cone Scan (sort of an MRI for teeth), showed a hid­den abscess that had gran­u­lat­ed. A small part of the out­er jaw bone next to the molar had also been destroyed, so no choice but to pull it. Then back to the den­tist on Fri­day for infec­tion pre­ven­tion so that I could return on Sat­ur­day to Mozam­bique. Ate my fill of ice cream, and made sev­er­al new friends while in RSA. Am glad to be back, as there is no place like home.

BIG BAD PYTHON RAIDS THE GOAT NURSERY

At 1:30a.m. Sat­ur­day, Eric received a call say­ing a large python (7 ft. or 2.2 meters) had bro­ken into the goat cor­ral and squeezed to death the best baby goat twins in the nurs­ery. There are 3 night guards in the cor­ral each night, and they imme­di­ate­ly spot­ted the snake when the goats sound­ed the alarm.

Sad­ly, the babies were already wrapped in its death squeeze in the few sec­onds it took them to grab their bam­boos and get inside the pen.

The snake made a hasty escape, tak­ing the men on a 45 minute “flash­light chase” before they could kill it. They tell me it was quite a scary fight in the dark against such a large snake with vicious teeth. Pythons are not ven­omous, but they are quick and very agile, pack­ing a bite that can rip tis­sue and leave a deep wound with a severe infection.

In pre­ven­tion, we will be seal­ing the area under the 2 gates with con­crete bricks, since that is how it entered the cor­ral. The snake’s tracks showed it tried to get though the tight­ly woven bam­boo fence in sev­er­al places, but couldn’t. How­ev­er, the space under each gate gets worn away by the many hoofs track­ing through that small area, thus mak­ing an easy entry way for snakes and small ani­mals. It upsets me great­ly that these 2 lit­tle ones lost their life because none of us ever thought to block this off.

The say­ing goes: “Africa shows no mer­cy.” When attacked by a snake or wild ani­mal, rarely does any­one get a sec­ond chance at life.

The Mom­ma goat is a large meat goat who pro­duces an abun­dance of milk. If held gen­tly, she will­ing­ly donates her large bag of milk to 2 of our baby goats, whose moth­ers have been dry since their birth. The “real thing” is much bet­ter than the milk sub­sti­tute, so I’m grate­ful these 2 lit­tle ones will benefit.

SCHOOL STARTS ON TUESDAY

Every moth­er knows how “fun” it can be get­ting mul­ti­ple chil­dren ready for the first day of school. We get to do it with 80 CHILDREN! The next 48 hours will be packed with dis­trib­ut­ing uni­forms made right on our base (3 months work), plus shoes, school mate­ri­als, back packs, and books. Mozambique’s schools are in ses­sion from Feb. 4th to end of Octo­ber. Our pre-school for our 4 and 5 year olds will also begin class­es this week. An excit­ing time for every­one, espe­cial­ly when our 3 year old orphans decide they are old enough to attend. They are always wel­come at our “Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples” pre-school even though they may only last until cook­ie break time.

Bless­ings to all of you as you brave the bit­ter cold in the USA. We are just “wet, hot, and mud­dy” over here, as the rainy sea­son is in full swing.

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Eric Dry The Bala­ma Staff