If you want to know what it’s like
to touch an electric fence…you can ask David.
Either my brother David or my husband David could tell you, since they
were both zapped by the fence last Sunday.
Our house is on the campus of Union Bible Institute (UBI) in Hilton,
South Africa. UBI is surrounded by this
electric fence, which runs right behind our house. On the other side is a soccer (football)
field where kids play. Last Sunday a
ball came over the fence and into our backyard, but it was stuck between the concrete wall and the electric fence. The
kids on the other side of the fence were shouting over the wall at us to please
get their ball. They sounded quite
desperate, so we had to do something. So David and David tried a few things, and
the first attempts were indeed shocking and unsuccessful. But you can’t quit when a group of kids are
begging you to please get them a ball so they can keep playing?! So eventually it turned into a 3-man effort
with 2 people using some tool to hold the wires apart, and the third person
reaching in to successfully grab the ball :-)
So when I learned that our back
yard has an electric fence running behind it, I was concerned as this didn’t seem
like a very friendly yard feature for a 1 and 3 year old to play. But actually, with the warm afternoons, we
have been outside quite a bit and I don’t think it will end up being a problem. In many places the electric fence is set off
with a concrete wall that Timothy and Matthew couldn’t get up. Other places it’s blocked by a thick bush. So, although they are too young to run around
campus unsupervised anyways, I don't think the electric fence will be an issue. (Lord willing I can still say this in 3
months…kids do grow and change fast.) A
bonus feature of our yard is that our neighbors have chickens, and there is a
gap in the bush so we can observe the chickens.
Both Timothy and Matthew were enthralled at their own level and I
suspect that checking in on the chickens will become a routine occurrence. Another entertaining feature of our yard are
the hadedas, which are a type of ibis with long beaks that flock together on the grass
around campus. Today Timothy ran off to
chase the birds, and in his exuberance he fell and started to cry. (He was fine.) He had tripped on the bumpy, uneven
ground. This was after jumping along the
sidewalk earlier and tripping on the sloped, uneven ground. More crying and his hands were scraped up a
bit. (Again, he was fine.) I could tell him until he was blue in the
face to be more careful, but this suburban American kid used to smooth,
predictable ground will just have to learn how to walk and run again the hard
way, with some good old-fashioned watch-your-step falls. And then there’s Matthew…he was just getting
the hang of walking as we left the States, and now we throw this at him! But at least he goes a lot slower and doesn’t
have much distance to fall, so no injuries for him (or none yet).
Yesterday we also spent time at the UBI
playground, about a 2 minute walk from our house. It’s small and old, but Timothy and Matthew
are too young to care. They are totally
enthralled by it. As a bonus it’s
located right in front of the married student housing here on campus, and a
number of kids live there. So that was a
fantastic way to meet some kids here on campus.
I’ve thought this many times, but Timothy and Matthew are great people
connectors. Kids naturally break down adult
“stranger danger” fears, their smiles transcend language and culture and skin
color, Timothy’s chattiness and favorite “What is your name?” question is a
natural conversation starter between me and other adults, and the kids force me
to get out of the house to burn off their energy. I love this aspect of traveling with kids,
and in the 4 days here it had more than made up for the plane ride:-) So…also at the UBI playground is a
sandbox. Timothy was off to investigate
it and remove the sandbox cover, when a 12 year old girl at the playground (who
struck me as trustworthy and not needlessly trying to freak out this foreigner)
warned me that a spider is living in there*.
So maybe we’ll wait on the sandbox for a bit until I decide if the
potential pros outweigh the potential cons.
And now in my brain this spider is probably the size of my face and
would surely head straight for our house if we opened up the sandbox. I just know these things. So the cons of opening up that sandbox are
looking quite large right now. *(David
just told me that he and Matthew did open the lid – it’s full of several inches
of nasty water, and an old pop can. They
didn’t see any spiders, although that’s
hardly proof.)
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