Bug Watch!

One week to go until the convention and yet again we have been having some brilliant times! On Tuesday, Brother Ken took the boat down to the outskirts of the jungle, which was exciting times for us! There was a small secluded village tucked away in the middle of nowhere. We had to navigate down a long shadowy creek and walk a long way down a wet muddy track....once again, thank goodness for those crocs! Here's a little snippet of what we found......

This huge tree is a cashew tree...there is a Guyanese name for it that Brother Ken told us three times...however, it has completely slipped our mind. Oops!

The nearest thing to a street that we have seen in Guyana! Everything was so quiet and still...most houses were unoccupied. When we asked why this was, they told us "Well..people come and go!" 

Typical vague Guyanese answer!

On the way to the houses, we saw a colony of leaf cutter ants walking on their invisible roads. They were so tiny and yet had these great big leaves on their backs. One got stuck in a hole and still managed to get back out...leaf on the back still intact! It made us think of the scripture where it talks about the industriousness of the ants.

There are no such thing as letter boxes here so we had to use our imagination!

Here is the lovely Sister Anne. She took us to her house and knocked the mangoes and coconuts out the tree for us to take home. She also gave us sweet peppers and bananas fresh from the tree. We have been fortunate to try all sorts of weird and wonderful fruits whilst we are here.......

Look at all these watermelons! There were in a huge pile and we sat on them and the whole pile fell down!

Mangoes!

We were told that this is the only fruit that you can thank Jehovah for, because when you drink the coconut water, you have to face the heavens to get it out! It's the most refreshing thing we have drunk on the ministry. When you finish it, you cut it in half and scoop out the jelly.....

.....complete with a homemade spoon :)

We were all given these massive grafted mangoes on one call. The lady took the biggest mango out of Molly's hand and gave it to Naomi.....because "she is the oldest" Brilliant logic!

One of our favourite treats on boat witnessing days are passion fruits. We can't eat them in the British way as there are no spoons, so we have to cut the top off (they all carry a knife in their ministry bags of course..) and pouring it into our mouths. We always thought passion fruits were delicious..but now we know how they are really meant to taste.

And now for a little section we like to call 'Bug Watch', as requested by many. Please bear in mind the horrificness of the creatures are not done justice by these photos. Take our word for it, they are HORRIFIC.

We have no idea what this is, but we like to call it a cockroach. The dear little family of cockroaches entertain themselves by writhing around in our suitcases, hiding in our mosquito nets (how do they get in there?!?!) and 'playing dead' on our cupboard...please see photo above. They are Molly's favourites...or rather....Molly is their favourites, as they seem to make more of an appearance in her room than anywhere else in the house.

Another unidentified species we have named 'drunk bugs'. This is because they fly around, throwing themselves at the light bulbs and knocking themselves out in the process. So at any given moment, you may get a shock when one falls from the ceiling into your plate of food. Yes, that did happen. Our ears are still ringing from Daisy's scream! They particularly seem to like Daisy. One evening, Daisy suddenly threw her arms in the air screaming and screaming......and screaming, until Naomi noticed that a drunk bug had landed  right on her! Thankfully, she saved the day with a quick whip of the tea towel. 

We don't really mind the lizards anymore, especially since they eat the mosquitoes! We have a special toxic spray we use called 'Bop' which is meant to kill all the bugs. We think it does us more damage than the mosquitoes! And unfortunately one lizard died in the 'Bop' process. Whoops!

                               
                                               We think this is a praying mantis?!

We have to be careful not to step on these little guys if we go outside in the dark.

                                              

  These ants are amazing, they work as a team to carry around bits of food that are left on the ground. We even saw them swapping places with one another when they got tired.

One day on the boat, we happened to see a sloth, with its baby holding on for dear life! Unbelievably cute and very slow. We watched it move from branch to branch using only it's three claws.

Have you ever seen a sleeping parrot? Well now you have! 

Oh and here's our first snake viewing! We have been walking with torches scanning the ground after this scare! Our poor neighbours are so used to us screaming now.

We know that there's hundreds of other bugs and beasts out there because at night time it's the noisiest thing you've ever heard. It's like the dawn chorus. We can definitely hear crickets but we are not sure what else is lurking out there and making all that racket! We are sure they will come and introduce themselves to us at some point, as most bugs have been doing. Better buy some more Bop!