Critter Intrusions

It began in the early hours when I was barely awake enough to make sense of what I was hearing.

“A chicken?” I said in my early-morning voice. “In our compound?”

John was more awake than I and laughed lightly. “No, you hear the neighbors’ chickens across the wall.”

Oh well. It was, as I said, early, and in my groggy cognitive state it sounded for all the world like the thing was strolling past our bedroom window.  And would you know, I happened to be right. Later that day, Tyler came racing inside, eyes shining. “Dad, come quick! There is a big pile of feathers out here.”

Turns out it was more than feathers. It had been my chicken. (Notice the past-tense.) Apparently it met the dog before it met the humans and was killed instantly.

It was only the next afternoon that Tyler came running inside again (he practically lives outdoors these days), telling me to come. There, under the orange trees were two chickens. Live ones this time, and the dog was nowhere in sight.

“Quick!” I told Tyler quietly. “Open the gates so we can shoo these things out before the dog gets them.”

The squeak of the gate called the dog and before we had a chance to rouse the chickens to safety, the dog was in full pursuit of the first one it got to.

“Sassy!” I hollered. “No! Come here!” But Sassy ran with laughing eyes after the squawking hen and I was sure I was about to witness its death.

The chicken must have sensed it was in a race for its life and flew over the wall, clearing the wires so narrowly that a handful of feathers were left clinging to the razor wire. Sassy turned and galloped back to the remaining chicken. With a mighty squawk, the chicken ran past me, the dog bolted after it, and the chase was on.

Poor chicken. I’m sure it hated being the center of the drama. The dog was closing in on her; I was six feet behind the dog hollering at it the whole time; and Tyler was following me as fast as he could. The wild-eyed chicken made a lap around the palm nut tree (a good choice as it could do corners faster than the dog) then headed down the south side of the house (a bad choice for the dog gained ground on straight stretches). The dog won, slapping a paw onto the chicken’s back, seemingly pleased to have stopped in the intruder.

“Sassy, let it go!” I gave the dog one swat on her backside and she released the chicken, apparently hoping this would provide an opportunity for another chase, a pleasure I denied with an authoritative word. The chicken limped for cover and cowered behind a wok left by the man who did some plastering on our wall until we caught her and tossed her out the gate with Sassy leaping up to snag the tail feathers as a final goodbye. The chicken, wisely, didn’t come back.

If they were going to come anyway, it was too bad that the chickens didn’t coordinate their visit with the termite invasion since chickens love eating termites and we would have been more than happy to share. Chicken farmers also love termites as they add great protein to their chickens’ diets and make a cheap and easy meal. Termites come boiling out of the ground like little tornadoes following the first rain of the season. Apparently Accra hasn’t had a good hard rain in a while, for the termites came out of hiding following a gully-washing rain we had this past week.

On the evening of the invasion, Sophia was quietly playing on the floor with fake bugs and animals, lining them up and making them sing in her squeaky animal voice, “Joy to the World.” (A fitting choice, I thought, when her critters reached the end of the verse singing “and heaven and nature sing.”) And then, abruptly, her fun ended and she stood up, crying hysterically.

“Sophia. Why are you crying?”

She was almost incoherent, but managed to gulp out, “Because there are things in here.”

The “things” were winged termites that wiggled their way into the house from between the windows and screens and came over to join the insects singing in her church service. From the sounds of things, they weren’t invited.  

Outside every window of our rooms with lights on, you could hear the beating of termite wings as they fought to gain access to our indoor lights. We had termite invasions in the villages where critters were just a normal part of life. (We even ate termites with the village schoolchildren who fried them on my charcoal brazier for a snack.) But here? Somehow having termites drunkenly dive at indoor lights of a city house seemed like a clash of worlds.

So instead of collecting them for food or letting them make themselves at home, we plugged their entrances on the window ledges and killed the dozens that were already in. Fortunately the crumpled water sachet bags effectively blocked the holes and the invasion was short-lived. Termites shed their wings on the night of their emergence. Evidently a whole host of them chose to do it on our back veranda for abandoned wings blew into my kitchen from under the door. Even now, several days after the termites came, I still find stray wings when I enter the kitchen each morning.

Not all things are fixed as easily as cramming water bags into holes or ushering a chicken out the gate. Sophia came to me yesterday with her fuzzy blanket wrapped around her head and shoulders like a shawl, a sure sign she is feeling insecure. “Mommy, will you hold me?” she asked.

I snuggled her, hating the blanket that added heat to the little body already peppered with signs of heat rash. “Mommy, do you remember the big airplane?”

Ah. So she was homesick. I held her against me, talking soothingly and wishing I could “make it all better.” For the most part, she is doing so well that I know this little hiccup of homesickness is only part of these transition days. I was glad that little bit of extra love I gave her yesterday must have been what she needed, for she is playing happily again, singing and chattering on a toy phone. The purple and white blanket is nowhere in sight.

Homesickness isn’t relegated to little people. I felt a twinge of it on Sunday when I missed our church folks back home. I also felt it when John reminisced about farming rice by hand in our old village, a time when we felt connected with our community by farming like they did. City life isn’t as community-oriented and I miss that. I realize that these unsettled feelings are an expected part of the transition and that someday soon city life will feel normal.

But right now I could use a big ol’ blanket slung over my shoulders. Only I don’t want one of fleece. I’ll take one of God's patchwork quilts made with grace and endurance and joy and hope and love all stitched up together.