Things That Prowl in the Night

Things That Prowl in the Night
When I think of the jungle there are many things that enter the imagination. To me the jungle is wild, awesome, full of hidden dangers, dense, beautiful, untamed, teaming with life, a book of lessons, mysterious, and full of wonder! The jungle seems to have little surprises around every corner. Some people are quite intimidated by the jungle. Admittedly, there are plenty of dangers in the jungle, but thankfully we are fairly safe here on campus.

We have seen many tantalizing hints of the presence of a jaguar or puma on and around campus. Isn't that exciting?! Whoever this feline visitor is seems very interested in the Sissons' little dog, Lulu. These large jungle cats are referred to by the locals as "tigers" and for some reason everyone seems royally terrified of them.

I don't quite understand the fear that people have as no one has ever been attacked by. The only exception that I have heard of was last year when someone shot and wounded a jaguar. Wounded animals are definitely a threat as they go into defense mode. That jaguar did attack one of the men, mauling him pretty bad. But in general, as is true with pretty much all wild animals, these cats won't bother people.

I guess it is a bit unnerving to know that these tigers will get bold enough to enter villages and sometimes snatch peoples dogs right off their porch in the night. One night the Sissons didn't lock Lulu in her little dog house as usual. She was sleeping up on the porch of their house. Sometime in the middle of the night she woke the family up with uncontrollable barking. Gilbert wasn't there at the time and Melissa didn't have the nerve to go out and look, but she pretty much knew it was a tiger. She opened the door to let Lulu into the house. Poor Lulu was pacing frantically along the porch and barking into the darkness below. When Melissa got her inside, the dog was shaking from head to toe.

The next day Melissa's fears were confirmed as she and her kids saw large cat prints coating the sand at the base of the house. Poor Lulu was very paranoid that whole day. She would go around sniffing each paw print, look off to the bush in the direction the prints led and bark and bark. Poor thing. Talk about PTSD!

I personally am dying to see one of these jungle cats. Man, oh man! If I would have been Melissa, you better believe I would have been out there on the porch with our spotlight and my camera to try to see our unwelcome visitor! Maybe someday I will get to see my "tiger."

Honestly the thing that scares me more that a jungle kitty is the other prowler we have lurking around these parts. He is an escaped convict, a thief and murder they call Black Boy. I guess this guy was adopted and raised in the Adventist village of Bethany. I don't really know when the troubles started with him, but he had stolen some things from the village and even our school campus two years ago. Get this, over that Christmas break there was a period of time where Melissa and her two kids were the only ones on campus. During that quiet break, Black Boy made himself at home in the men's dorm, unbeknown to Melissa. He set up someone's hammock and mosquito net and lived quite comfortably there for probably a couple weeks. When he left, he thanked BMMC for their hospitality by helping himself to various items from the dorm that he took with him.

He did get caught for his thefts and was in prison last year but somehow got out. Since he is a bush man, he has been hiding in the cover of the jungle and the authorities haven't been able to track him down. We have heard rumor that he has family that is hiding him, making it virtually impossible for the police to catch him.

Black Boy has definitely been in the area recently as we have a report of a stolen chainsaw in the village of Mashabo. It is really sad when things like this happen. Typically everyone in the village is quite trusting of each other and there are no problems to speak of. But when reports like this come up, people put up their guard and feel the need to lock up their usually open homes. Man truly can be the scariest beast there is!


PS Don't worry mom, we are locking up our house :)