Friday, September 12, 2014

Rat trap...or not

I was awakened this morning at 4:30am with noise coming from outside of my room. The power was out last night, so I had left more windows open than usual, so I thought about what could be happening...maybe someone stealing stuff through the window, maybe a gecko or cockroach stuck in something. I didn't leave anything of value by the windows, but got up with my flashlight to check and see what it might be.
Then, I see it...the noise...it's a chunky brown mouse in my kitchen. He was perched up on my red spatula, just staring right back at me with his beady little eyes. We had a stare down for a minute. Man he was a loud mouse...moving all kinds of things around in the kitchen...enough to wake me up. So I turn on the light...and that kind of startles him. Then go to get the machete...because that's what all the Hondurans do...so I decided that was what I was going to do too.
So I get back and he finally crawls down off of my red spatula and is by the soap and...WHACK!!! with the machete. WHACK!!! again by the kitchen utensils. WHACK!!! again by the drain board. WHACK!!! again on the stove. WHACK!!! again behind the stove. Then, he's gone into the stove.
I then tried to go back to sleep...yeah right after just trying to kill a mouse. I thought I should have trapped him, not tried to kill him. It's pretty obvious that I don't have any kind of accuracy!
So, then I got this ingenious idea to get back up out of bed and turn on the stove to see if I could force him out with the heat...well he never came out. So, maybe I cooked him and will have dead mouse smell in my house until I can find someone to take apart my stove and get him out. Or maybe he is not dead and just withstood the heat and will need traps to catch him. Only time will tell, but I will ask someone for mouse traps today!
Plate that was in my sink that took the blow of the machete instead of the mouse.

The wall beside the stove that took the blow instead of the mouse.
Sorry...didn't get any pictures of the fat little brown mouse...just my missed machete markings.

Hospital Curtains

After a couple in my church donated some patient divider curtains to the hospital, we had to figure out how to get them down to Honduras.They are nice curtains, just very heavy. So, several people who have Delta flight privileges offered to fly down for the day (literally 24 hours in Honduras) in order to bring the curtains down. It was a great idea. And after my flight was delayed so much I would miss my connection, I took the refund they offered me and went with them on the Delta flight the next day. (Oh and by the way, we got to fly first class...lovely)
They arrived in Honduras to the hotel to pick us up, then sorting of the curtains, and packing them into garbage bags for transport back to the hospital. We loaded them in the trailer, then were free the rest of the day. We took naps, then went to dinner and the pool. Then sleep, and a nice big hotel breakfast in the morning before they headed to the airport once again for their flight. I stayed waiting for another missionary to pick me up and take me and all the curtains back home.
Thank you to the couple who donated the curtains. Thank you to those who brought the curtains down. Here are a few pictures of the first curtains hung.
Patient room

Window covering

Emergency room with one of our nurses attending to a patient on the other side of the curtain.