Stalking the Wild Bushrat

My title has to have caught your attention!

This morning we had Moru lessons with Morris. We only stayed for about an hour and a half as he was suffering from a malaria flareup. He taught us some more useful words and sentences, and then we began reading, pronouncing, and translating Kito Lusi Ro Luka be (Story of Lois with Luke). After some kind of Dick-and-Jane stuff, the story gets interesting, and you start to find out what Dad (Aaron) kills with his spear. So Morris had to do some cultural interpretation: The kind of hunting Aaron does is called 'mara,' and it means hunting in a group. The hunters make a kind of semicircle spread out with the two ends in the vanguard, and they advance on the animals, kind of sweeping a broad area. When a hunter makes a kill, he leaves the hunt and goes home. Aaron killed an antelope with his spear, and then he killed a bushrat with his arrow. Morris went totally off on a bushrat tangent when we got to this point! He informed us that bushrat is as sweet as fish. (No, it does NOT apparently taste like chicken.) Later we asked David, the CMS missionary, what it is, and he said it's related to the elephant but in the family -- hmmm -- ibex or ilex or silex or something like that... sorry, bad memory -- someone help me out here? Anyhow, the bushrat isn't a rodent, and it's fun to hunt and more fun to eat. Morris went so far as to say that when another hunter spears one, he himself tries to steal it off the spear!

Today Gordon wanted me to try to fix his computer, which wouldn't print from Outlook Express. We had another technological miracle -- I tried several things that didn't work, and then I searched online and found the right answer on the second try. A couple of commands in the Run box, and voila! once again I look like I know what I'm doing. Appearances can be deceiving!

We had a great time visiting David and Heather, the CMS missionaries stationed here. They have a beautiful house, a multiroom round brick house with a high grass roof. It's cool and lovely. Heather had made mulberry cake. They have a mulberry tree, frangipani, lemongrass, aloe vera, and more, all growing in their yard. We were able to get a sense of the recent history of the area in our conversation with them.

Sylvester Mazawa turned up this evening! He's the pastor of Lui Parish, but we haven't seen him at all till now because he's studying at the Bishop Ngalamu Theological College in Mundri. Sylvester says he'll be at church tomorrow when Jim and I go there. (We offered to walk, but apparently the CUAMM administrator is going to drive us in her car.) FYI, Bishop Ngalamu was the Moru Archbishop of Sudan, about three archbishops back.