Reptile ramblings

We were sitting in our school today and it was raining. Now that we're in long rain season, when it rains, it pours. It will rain for a while and then stop, and you go outside and the top three inches of red clay is saturated, your shoes sinking in and sliding every which way. 

Today, when it was still raining, we heard someone outside and our teacher went to see who it was. She came back in, asking if we had talked to someone about a turtle. We all laugh, remembering yesterday, and go outside to see the man from yesterday, who apparently had found a turtle and brought it to us! It was a small box turtle, very cute and sturdy. He placed it on our railing, told us we could take it, and left a few minutes later. 

So then we had two class animals for a few hours: the turtle, and Mhitaji, our dear house cat (the name we gave him translates to "Needy", because whenever we are eating he comes in and begs incessantly).

We took turns checking on the turtle, who mostly hung out on our front porch, getting stuck in the holes between the bricks of the railing wall. After class was over, one of my fellow trainees took the turtle back to the river from whence he came. 

Another day of finishing class early and none of us wanting to go home just yet. We followed the pattern of yesterday: heading to the village up the way for some of us to play Settlers of Catan, heading back down through my village after for cold soda, then heading to the river, to poke around, look at tadpoles, and breathe river air. 

The insects are loud tonight.