Sean
On Monday the 15th Jenna, Kylie, and I (Sean) arranged to go into town with Sheila to visit an orthopedic surgeon friend of hers as a hospital visit and to ask questions. To ease leaving in the morning the three of us spent the night in a guest house/room at the orphanage. I’d spent the night there once before, and have had dinner there 3 or 4 times, but I was not ready for the night that we had. After playing with the Vervet monkey for a little while, I went to shower, only to be disturbed as the monkey opened the door and came to join me (although this has happened before and was not interpreted as being out of the ordinary). I was the only one who got to shower since after I had finished Billy the hippo decided she was ready to eat, and since her bowl is outside of the shower room, it would not be safe for the other two to shower. So we collected ourselves, grabbed some drinks, and headed into Sheila’s house. We found her sipping a beer and watching tv. If that wasn’t strange enough, since we hadn’t seen a tv for so long, we all immediately recognized the movie she was watching to be Rookie of the Year. We watched the entire movie. Once it had finished, and a little bit to Sheila’s disappointment, the movie Flicka was on, featuring Tim McGraw-do me a favor and look up this movie if you are not familiar with it so you can imagine the three of us sitting alongside SHEILA SIDDLE watching this movie. Her disappointment came in that in reading the tv guide she thought that we were about to watch Flipper… if only.
After watching that movie entirely as well, we took a break from tv (the news was so boring) to eat dinner. The rest of the night passed by pretty uneventfully until we all went to bed. Although I am sure we were safe and sound the whole time, it seems as though the chimps, roosters, and figs (from the fig tree overhanging our room) all were determined to prevent us a good night sleep. The chimps screamed off and on, and the roosters-although the girls say it did not start until 4am I am pretty sure it was earlier-jumped up on my windowsill and looked at me toss and turn as they crowed, and the fig tree seemed determined to hit me with a fig all night, not seeing the tin roof above me as much of an obstacle.
Despite a restless night, waking up in that magical place seemed to give me more than enough energy. We woke up at 6:30 to allow Jenna time to shower and me to have some breakfast before watching the chimps at the orphanage get bottle-fed before leaving at 7:30. As I was changing I looked out my window to see Sheila staring at me from across the way, and she waved us over. She made us coffee and we chatted listening to classics such as “How Great Thou Art.” It wasn’t long before we saw Billy pass by, waiting for her morning milk-two bottles of it that she won’t leave without and she won’t drink unless they are warmed. Seeing her with her head on the porch suddenly made us all remember that Jenna was showering a couple of feet away. Then we saw Billy move towards the shower. Kylie and I ran over to the window on the side of the house that would let us see the shower room and where Billy had hopefully been held up at the fence. Fortunately Billy was not eating Jenna. Jenna sat a mere 10 feet away from the big hippo, having a staring contest that she was quick to admit Billy had won. Sheila and Sylvia were quick to her rescue, though she never felt threatened and it ended up not being a big deal at all.
Read more blog to find out about the rest of our day…
–thank you all for reading. Despite being in Africa our thoughts are never too far from home.
June 30th, 2009 at 7:36 am
Oh, Sean We Miss You. Love Barbie