Animal Tales I

I have always had a thing about animals. As a child, I was known as the person on our mission station to care for any baby bird or small rodent that was found motherless. I regularly had jars of polliwogs on my bedroom window. Hundreds of baby frogs would hatch at once, and they would be everywhere! We appreciated it when they became toads because they would sit around the porch light to catch the mosquitoes and flying insects that congregated there.

My parents were so long suffering with my "gift" for animal care. One day I collected a whole boxful of snails. I was so proud of them, I brought them in and left them in the kitchen overnight. The next morning there were snails crawling all over our kitchen walls and my mother was not amused. Another time, someone gave me nineteen baby rats, only a day old. They were pink and ugly but I tried valiantly to keep them alive. I believe my mother was secretly relieved when the cat knocked over their cage and ate them all.

We lived uphill from a river. A few times a year we were visited by large pythons...they were after our chickens. My dad became adept at picking them up. One night we put a huge python in a pillow case and stored it in our dryer. The next day we took it to school and showed it off, then let it go down river at a "chickenless" spot! I remember thinking my dad was pretty cool for doing this. We had a man that visited our school who had a huge bag full of snakes in smaller bags. He would come around every few years and educate us on the different snakes native to the Congo. He taught me to be unafraid of snakes, although I still startle when I see one moving quickly!

My pets were both domestic and exotic. I remember saving and saving my money to go to the market to buy a baby goat. I purchased the goat, whom I named Goblin,but he was so small and needed his mother still. I insisted on taking him to bed with me, to keep him warm. My mother barely allowed this. He bawled loudly when he was hungry and didn't care what time of the day or night it was. Goblin grew to be a huge nuisance on the mission station, eating our neighbor's flowers and shrubs. We finally gave him to someone who could keep him penned up.

My most exotic pet was my chimpanzee, Jojo. He came to me in the back of a jeep from some people from up country. They said that his mother had been killed by hunters. He was the littlest, most pathetic looking guy, I didn't even have to think to plunk down my entire summer's earnings for him ($120). I had no idea what I was getting into! Chimpanzees have four hands. They do like to be carried constantly when they are babies. I always say that my first child was a chimpanzee, because I literally had to hold his hand until he went to sleep, I had to carry him everywhere, and of course keep him out of the myriad of ways he could get into trouble.

May parents allowed him to be inside the house at first. I tried to keep diapers on him, but he hated them. I tried to give him baths but it's hard to submerge a body that has 4 hands holding the side of the tub, keeping out of the water! Jojo gave our family many laughs and many headaches. His stay in the house ended when he broke a bottle of Wind Song perfume in my room and the whole house reeked for days. He graduated to a tree in our yard where he spent most of his day figuring out how to escape his leash and many times broke chains in order to go on his rampages through the mission station. As I said, I had no idea what I was getting into when I took on that pathetic baby chimp. I had no idea he would turn into a five foot tall, incredibly strong, uncontrollable animal. Looking back, I think my parents were saints to let me have him!

I went through a stage of my life when I thought this animal loving part of me was not very spiritual. But I have decided in my 50's that I will never be any different. I am drawn to animals and it is a part of the way God made me. I have been enjoying embracing my gift instead of minimizing it because it doesn't have to do with people. It is satisfying for me to care for the animals that I now get from our Native Animal Rescue. I'm like an animal Foster Mom, and it fits me to a T. More on that for another post!