Ants, Bats and Antics

As soon as it is light, the city becomes a buzz of activity.  From the air I can imagine people coming from the outskirts with their produce to sell on every street corner.  This group of people were carrying bananas from the hills down to town.  We stopped and tried to talk to this boy about buying his bananas and he knew exactly what he wanted for them.  Another man helped him because he knew some English.   

At the park we see these big black ants always scurrying somewhere and I feel the analogy is pretty strong.  They follow each other marching one by one or two by two or four by four like the song says.  We watched them and sang the song the other morning.  And haven't you seen ants carrying burdens too big for them?  

 That stem on this bunch of bananas bounced with every step like a tail.   We stopped by this group and bought a complete bunch.  Everyone crowds around the car helping us understand how much they want.  We are pretty certain that the price goes up when they see us, but we have decided we don't care and we pay what they ask.  One day as we drove away, we heard the woman shout for joy.  That clinched it for us.  We don't dicker any more.  It's too fun to see how happy they are to make a big sale.

One night as it began to get dark we noticed bats flying over the house. Neeleys were here and we stood outside for awhile watching them.  There seemed to be hundreds of them all flying in the same direction like a migration.  Later Neeleys told us they had seen the place they roost during the day.  We went and took these pictures which don't do justice to what we saw.  There were thousands of these large bats all hanging in a few big trees by the river.  The trees were full of them.  

We went there and waited until they flew one night.  It was so interesting to watch them and listen to their noises and see the flurry of them taking off a few at a time. We learned that they are fruit bats.  This being true, they live in heaven because Burundi has an abundance of wonderful fruit of many kinds.  We buy bananas, pineapple, mangos, papaya and avacados anywhere in the city.   They are big and beautiful and flavorful.  Yesterday we bought strawberries.  I should have taken a picture.  They were stacked in little pyrimids on small flat baskets.  2000 bif for a small pile.  We bought a big basket full.  They are much smaller than the ones in our stores at home, but much much more flavorful.  They are completely natural.  

 We had to try it.  ONE BUNCH weighs a ton.  We don't have a scale so we couldn't weigh them, but it took Remy helping us to get it on our heads. I could feel my neck working to balance it, and the bananas dug into my head even though I had a woven ring on.

 That last picture presents my true feelings.  This hurts!  HOW DO THEY DO IT?  The secret lies in what we are accustomed to, but WOW!  That's all I can say!  If I did this every day, I'd be in better shape.

We know the scripture in Proverbs 6:6 "Go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." but we couldn't find Bats anywhere in the scriptures, but we follow their example by eating fruit in the season thereof.

So we have considered the ways of the ant -- busy and carrying heavy burdens.  People here are like that. They never cease to amaze us.