Here we are again. Not quite a week has passed since my last letter, but I thought I would go ahead and pound something out tonight. It is Saturday, August 9th and all is well.
Last Tuesday Reb felt our little guy kicking around inside for the first time! That was pretty exciting. I think it helped Reb once again feel like there is something actually happening as she slowly grows bigger around the middle. Since Tuesday she has felt the baby quite a bit.
Wednesday José and family did show up and seemed to be in good spirits. They were in somewhat of a hurry to get on up to the village and to their house as José still had to pump water and get things ready before dark. It was good to see them and to receive a couple of hammocks that we had asked them to bring from the house there in town. We immediately got those hammocks strung up out in the front room where there is a little breeze in the afternoons.
Almost every other day we have Ashes coming through here and stopping to visit. I’m happy that they still want to come by and visit even with José and Suelaine now back in the village. They definitely are hard workers. They were able to sell quite a few sacks of beans here in Breuville this past week.
Well, Reb is still saying that the Lord intervened for her in a special way this past week. I can’t even remember what day of the week it was but we were sitting down for lunch and Reb had just warmed up some fried fish that she had cooked the day before. I had already made up my mind that I was going to leave the fish alone as there were still plenty of beans with GOOD pig meat in them.
Reb brought the pan of sizzling fish to the table and lifted the lid and the most bizarre thing happened. All of a sudden there was a buzzing sound that got louder and louder and in just a few seconds the kitchen was filled with hundreds of flies! I mean I have never seen so many flies in any house before. And there continued to be more and more of the things. They were swarming over the table above our heads. When we started to clue in that the number of flies was only increasing, I told Reb to quickly take the frying pan with the fish outside. She did and most of the flies started leaving through the open window. We both took the cue that those fish weren’t fit for eating anymore and we ended up throwing them out. What was kind of weird, though, is that I specifically smelled the pan of fish right after Reb refried them and they smelled completely normal. Reb believes that God sent the flies in mass to warn her not to eat of the fish as it would have made her very sick. We don’t know for sure, but we had eaten fish before and have since eaten fish and have never seen any special attraction of flies like we did that time.
One afternoon I went out fishing with Pastor Evando, his two little boys, and Adi, one of the believers. We just stayed around close to the community here and Evando didn’t end up catching a whole lot with his tarrafa (cast net). There are some afternoons when the fish are running and you will see guys running to their houses to get their nets. They eat a lot of fish here and most of the fish aren’t real big. I’ve never big a huge fan of fish and it is even worse when they are little, bony things! Thank goodness we have Cricket here to go out and get those wild pigs, though.
This morning we went out for a stroll through the community and saw several of the men carrying the wild pig up from the river on their backs. Apparently, a number of the men went hunting yesterday afternoon and shot 16 wild pig! They left them out in the jungle and then this morning went and got them all. We have plenty of meat tonight. Two different people brought us pig meat and two other people brought us fish. Don’t worry, we won’t be doing any salting and drying of meat or fish. I immediately threw some English sauce in with the pig meat and pressure cooked it. The fish we seasoned with some lemon pepper and Reb fried that up tonight.
We did have some Ashes today. Joao and the witchdoctor showed up at the house late in the afternoon. They kind of got caught in a big downpour so were looking wet and cold when they got here. We made some coffee for them and they seemed to enjoy that. I don’t think they drink coffee too often. Before serving the coffee I asked the witchdoctor if he drank coffee and in his fast-but-broken Portuguese he grinned at me and responded, “Oh yes. I drink everything!” I believe him. I think he really likes that manioc beer, too.
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