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Topic: Eek! (02/25/10)
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TITLE: Flying Ants, Wall Spiders, Rats, and Cobras Eek! | Previous Challenge Entry
By Judy Wood
03/03/10 -
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Flying ants, otherwise known as termites, were plentiful. As you drove through the countryside you saw termite mounds four to six feet high. You certainly didn’t build anything out of wood.
We lived at a mission school. There were light poles and when the flying ant season was upon us the students placed buckets full of water under them. The flying ants would land in the water and their wings would come off. Then the students would fry them in cooking oil.
Yes, flying ants could be annoying, but they were also a delicacy. In fact, Kelly, the school superintendent said: “They taste like popcorn.” I thought I would try them. Sorry Kelly, but they don’t taste like popcorn to me.
What turned me against them was when my son John came and stood in front of me. He had put a handful of flying ants in his mouth. Then he opened his mouth wide so I could see. “Eek, John, that’s gross. Don’t do that.” A mouthful of bugs is not a pretty sight. Boys!
Wall spiders were a part of everyday life. They laid flat against the wall and seemed like a wall decoration. I never thought a spider would be something that I could ignore. They ate mosquitoes so you certainly didn’t want to kill them.
Thank God for the dogs that we had. They were so good to protect us from different varmints.In the U.S. we expect our dogs to be brave by barking and letting us know of intruders and in Africa they were even more helpful.
We had a dog named Michele that we inherited from some missionaries that moved. Fred had some rats in his office. Our cats didn’t want anything to do with the rats. Of course, the rats there were larger than our cats. One day Michele stopped by the office and started sniffing around. All of a sudden she was attacking something in the closet. She came out with a rat in her mouth. "Eek, Michele take that out of here."
Then we had a dog that John named Lucky. Lucky was his fourth dog. The others had died of various illnesses. One had rabies. John named him Lucky in hopes that he would survive. All of his other dogs had died when they were just puppies.
One day Lucky was barking repeatedly. I wondered what was wrong. I looked out the back door and then quickly slammed the door. About three feet away was a cobra. It was standing up ready to strike. I was so afraid that Lucky would get bitten.
The I called out to Fred, "There's a snake. Don't let the boys go outside." I was scared something would happen to Fred or the boys. Luckily some of the students who were used to the snakes came and threw bricks at them and killed them.
Several times our dogs alerted us of danger. Thank goodness that Lucky was there.I hate to think what could have happened if we didn’t have our dogs to keep us safe. God certainly watched over us during our five year stay there.
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Take a look at your second paragraph--consider changing the 'you's to 'we's or even 'I's. (I've never been there, but you have). It's best to avoid slipping into 2nd person in narrative.
Love the dog's name!