Road to Indonesia--Animals

 In some comment recently I was asked if we had seen any animals and I said no. That is not completely true. We are within a city, although the campus is on the hill above the city and quite isolated, but it  still is not really rural.  But there are some animals. One morning this week, I heard a kitten mewing outside, but the more I listened, I realized it was not quite right. I figured out it was a set of 4 birds flying in the sky. As I walked to school I stopped to talk to the director's daughter. She is a senior at school,  and has her morning devotions sitting up on top of some sort of big cement block outside her house. I always pass her and greet her. I asked if it was the birds making that sound. She said that she had also thought it was her kitten outside, but then realizsed it was the birds. They were big.  I guess they were kites/hawks or some such. 

We also have been turning off our overhead fan in the kitchen every late afternoon, because it sounded like it was a squeaky belt or something. We thought it needed to rest. This afternoon when the director came to visit us and bring us some pepper, the noise started. I asked if he heard it.  It is not the overhead fan, but rather cicadids in the jungle outside our window and they tune up every afternoon!

I also have a beautiful classroom that has floor to ceiling windows on 2 sides.  However, yesterday before class started, I looked out the window and a huge snail was crawling up the side. It was a good 4 inches across.  It is not as big as some snails we saw in Zambia which were about 10 inches across, but this was a pretty impressive snail. Also for the last 2 days during grade 8 language arts about the same time, we have seen a huge rat climb up the window. It is a good 8 inches long, not counting the tail! Reminded me of the fruit rats that would visit our kitchen in Taiwan most nights. It easily was 10 inches long, without the tail. We set live traps and caught one. When I told our language teacher, she said, "I hope you saved it. They are good eating."