Extreme Africa

In my experience, it seems that things which may be mild in England are much more extreme in Africa.

Take, for example, the weather. In England, a hot day is uncomfortable, with temperatures in the 30s ('C); but this is nothing like the extreme temperatures of a hot African day. Days when the sun beats down relentlessly from a cloudless sky; when my skin feels like it is being fried under the scorching sun and I can do nothing to stem the tiny rivulets of sweat; when my eyes hurt from the bright glare, and my whole self cries out for shade and relief from the unforgiving heat.

When it rained in Dodoma or when we have rain in Juba, we don't get precipitation falling steadily from the skies. Rather, it seems like the skies have been ripped apart by a huge giant, who then pours bucket-load after heavy-handed bucket-load of water directly on top of us. Water crashes down with great speed and volume. The noise was deafening on our tin-roof house in Dodoma as sheets of water thundered down from rain-soaked clouds. In Juba, the rain seems even heavier, gushing down and quickly flooding the garden and pathways outside. Then the rain stops as suddenly as it started and the heat begins to rise again.

In Africa, indigenous wild animals are spectacular and much more thrillingly dangerous than the wild-life of England. Here, we have scorpions and all manner of biting spiders to replace the harmless British spider. There are all kinds of snakes, with all kinds of markings from sandy brown to riotous skin colours and varying degrees of poisonous bites. Our house-lady Grace recently showed me the scars on her leg and foot where she had been bitten by a snake. Thankfully, she recovered, but the marks are there as permanent reminders of what could be lurking in the shadows for the Unsuspecting.

We can also visit wildlife reserves in Africa where we have seen incredible creatures: giraffes, hippos, rhinoceros, lions... This all seems a little more extreme than the tamer deer or ponies that come to mind as I try to picture the animals of Britain...

Even the insect life in Juba is proving to be more extreme! We found these caterpillars yesterday, making their way across the MAF car-park as I walked with Joel to his preschool:

For scale, Esther reached out her fingers close to Mr Caterpillar:

 Joel tells me that they now have a box of these caterpillars in his preschool classroom. They are feeding them leaves in the hopes that the children will be able to look after them until the caterpillars transform into the amazing African Emperor Moth.

I am not so sure that I want spiky, horned creatures like this in our downstairs classroom, even though Esther begged me to allow her to keep one in a plastic bottle, one she had collected and named "Spiky"! But I am not convinced that they would lend themselves to a good night's sleep. I know I would worry about them escaping and making their way upstairs to scare me in the dead of night! So the caterpillars, including Spiky, have been relegated to outdoor living.
However, one should make the most of every opportunity, so our "extreme" caterpillar became Ben's computer and literacy lesson today. We looked them up online and Ben documented our find. I have never seen him enjoy a writing task as much as he enjoyed this one!
Living in Africa definitely has extremely good advantages to take hold of... ;-)