A Bunch of Burts

After the scorching temperatures of April, we have warmly welcomed the cooler breezes and mercury readings that have come with many days of rain and wind and storms. The overcast and sometimes drizzly days remind us of home and make us a bit homesick. I know, most people look forward to the sun and not overcast skies, but we are a bit strange that way. Well, at least I am.

Zach likes it too! He is getting drenched in some very heavy rain!

We have discovered that with the rain has come an alarming multitude of bugs! We had a fie dap, a power outage, earlier this week. When we arrived home around 7:30, no power at all, so we went around finding candles and dispersing them throughout the house. As I carried the only light in the house, I was attacked by every flying bug around! They were crawling in my hair, down my shirt and in my face. yuck! After the lights came on, it appeared that every crawling thing in Chiang Mai had decided to move in under cover of darkness! Thankfully they generally stay downstairs.

We have also been amazed to discover the ingenuity and hardiness of ants. Our house is made of concete, from the foundation to wall to floors, and yet, the walls seem inhabitated by many hordes of ants, which have become more brazen the longer we live here. We daily have an ant battle in the morning, among other creatures. That is the real reason I have Greg get up before me! Oh yes, and the bit of extra sleep too!

We are often amazed at the places the ants get into and the tunnels they disappear into that seem to have been dug into the cement walls. It should have been no surprise then when I found ants in my eggs. I do not mean just walking all over the eggs, but they had drilled into an egg and were eating it!

God has certainly allowed us to acclimate to many things here, and the insects are no expection. When we first arrived, a couple members of the family who shall remain nameless, (right Ema?), freaked out at the sight of every gecko and lizard and bug they saw. But now we can all brandish the broom to kill the cockroaches and gleefully wipe out a column of ants with the best of them.

Earlier this year, Ema’s class put on a play about the Pied Piper and I thought to myself, he can get rid of hordes of rats and a whole town of children, how about masses of ants? But wouldn’t you know it, he is never around when you need him, and probably so booked up, he now has an unlisted number!

I do not have any pics of the ant battalions, but here are a couple of other interesting bug pictures.

What appears to be some kind of moss or lichen are many little fuzy bugs. They have a sort of moth-like body, but instead of wings, have fuzzy white ‘hair’. When you touch them, some kind of white powdery stuff comes off on you. They jump too! We have been told that they are delicious too, but will take that as fact without requiring empirical evidence.

This one jumped onto Zach, you can sort of see the shape better here.

Need a place for a science project? We have some great bug studying opportunities here!

Earlier this year, the small house church we had been attending closed down. Since at this time we had no vehicle, we depended on some friends to take us to church. We had been to church with them a few times before, and knew the pastor and his wife from other interactions. Greg has been fishing with the pastor, obviously a good man if he likes to go fishing!, and his wife was our inital culture guide when we first arrived here in Thailand.

Last Saturday was their annual children’s outing and we went up to a waterfall at a national park. The kids had a mini-VBS of sorts and the ladies prepared green papaya salad for lunch. Before you wrinkle your nose, this is one of my favorite foods here, it is delicious!

The wind was blowing and some clouds gave us some shade from the sun, most welcome!

It was a nice chance for me to sit and ‘chat’ with the ladies. At church on Sundays it seems very difficult to engage people in conversation. Of course that may be that I am not the most easy person to talk to yet. They have to talk slowly and at a toddlers level. haha. But in our traveling and moving around, I found this to be true at churches all over the US as well. People are friendly, but on a very surface level, and it is not easy to move past the “Hello How are you”, into more satisfying conversation. That always made me a bit sad. It seems at church, as fellow believers, we should be able to find some common ground quickly, if no where else than our mutual identification in Christ and membership in His body. But I digress.

Beth, the other falang in the picture, and I joined the somtam preparations and had a lovely time talking with the other ladies. They asked us about America, some of the differences in food, climate, and living. At least the topic was something I knew about!

It is easy to bash our own country and see all that is wrong with it, but living overseas has given us at least a new appreciation for what our country does offer. We have so much, and I mean more than material things, although that is a major part. When we arrived at the park, we (meaning Greg and I and the kids), came with the whole group which was nearly completely Thai. The entrance to the park is 20 Baht, if you are Thai. All of us falangs were 200 Baht.

After lunch we made a small hike up the waterfall, and just being near it made the air cooler! Since it is dry season, the pool at the bottom was not deep, but definitely deep enough for some paddling around and soaking! I noticed in the pictues, that the water looks muddy, but it really was very clean and fairly clear. There are alot of us splashing around in it though!

It really was a wonderful way to spend the day and very refreshing. We will definitely need to find some waterfalls closer to home. This one was about an hour away. We would be happy to take you if you want to come too!