Today was spent in Kitosi with Auntie Jean, an amazing kiwi lady, clearing land for her charity called Children of Light-an after school program to introduce the gospel to kids through continued learning. She's clearing land to put up a place other than her driveway to host the programs, and to give us Accranians some sense of Africanism and manism! Seriously, breaking stumps and picking up large stones really boosts testosterone(my apologies to the ladies that help). Something about machetes, and so-sos, and pick-axes that just feels masculine! There is, however, something about scorpions crawling out from under the rock you just tried to pick up that takes all that man juice right out of oneself and causes you to jump and scream like a little girl. I do feel before judgement is passed on any involved parties you should understand that these scorpions were the size of housecats with pruning shear pincers and stingers they could fence with. That's possibly an exaggeration, but seriously, every oburoni there agreed those were the 2 largest scorpions we've ever seen- zoo or elsewhere, and Ben's and my hands had been under that boulder trying to move it 10 seconds earlier! The picture and video are actually from a previous visit to the land, but you get the point. The video shows the land we were able to clear in one morning. This jungle bush grows thick and fast. The land has to be cleared of all brush, stumps, and stones using primitive tools, which takes a lot longer than the blitzkrieg tractor approach taught me by my papaw back in Mississippi(ramsack everything in sight and make repairs to the tractor later). After cleaning the land, grass has to be planted within the week to prevent more bush plants from taking over. We've managed to clear about 90 sq. ft. each day we've worked. Two days of work brings us to a patch of cleared land similar to the size of an average living room, and we are thankful! Pictures of the scorpions will be posted later!
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