As Long As They're Big It's OK...

OK, here’s a real missionary story. We’ve lived here for 3 ½ months, and we have seen roaches in the house many times. Generally this is how it goes: I see a roach by the back door or in the kitchen area, I grab the Raid Max and spray the horrid thing and it dies. Then I proceed to spray all the screens and drains and we find another couple of dead ones in the morning, all big ones. (I was told on my first week here that as long as they’re big it’s OK, cause that means that they’re not having babies in your house.) OK, I can live with that.

Anyway, on Friday we got a dresser from another missionary’s house – they didn’t need it and the one the boys were using was falling apart. When I went to open to drawers to put clothes in, a roach was in it. He ran for cover – in my direction. I screamed when I felt him run down my capris and my bare calf. Josh came running and killed the roach. We sprayed down the dresser and left the room for a bit. When I came back in there was a smaller roach also dead and another one had escaped from the room and was running around drunkenly – it was just a matter of time.

Fast forward to this evening – let me just say that until this time there hasn’t been a roach in the bedrooms or in the dressers, nor in the food or anywhere in the kitchen besides the floor. (I did find a scorpion on a pair of pants I’d left on the floor once, but I found it before it found me.) This evening I opened the cutlery drawer in the kitchen to find a roach scuttling about in the serving spoons. I called for Josh and he took the drawer outside, chased the roach out and killed it. Then I proceeded to boil water to pour over all of the contents of the drawer and the other two drawers as well. When it got to boiling, I poured it over, then realized I hadn’t let it boil for 5 minutes, so who knows if that was safe. By that time I was calmer and I decided that was all I was going to do about that – besides tell you all. So that was my adventure for the weekend.

I will get out that recipe for powder you put in hard to reach places to kill roaches. (Pray that I find borax at the store!) I was hoping I wouldn’t need it but obviously I will. I am thankful that I can get up at night and not have roaches scuttling in all directions like my parents had to deal with in PNG. That might about do me in (or I’d never get up at night!).

Thanks for your prayers for us. We do so need them every day! It’s sure not boring living here, though a trip to Target or something sounds pretty exciting to me now! :)