Life in the Tropics
We built our house in the village out of hand-made cement blocks and corrugated metal roofing. With these materials and with screens on the windows you can live quite comfortably in the tropics.
Termites can’t eat the cement, and the mosquitos and other insects are mostly kept outside. Everything is lush green most of the year around, especially as Lisa had a blast planting flowers and fruit trees everywhere. Today, the place is a veritable tropical paradise!
The backyard slopes away from the house since we are on a slope that leads down to an old stream bed. The backyard goes back for several acres of fruit trees, pineapples, citrus, garden, fish ponds, and returning jungle.
Different varieties of hibiscus and other tropical flowers are scattered around the landscape creating beautiful places to have a tea party and get away on the back property. Here Lisa has tea with Bev Attwood from Moscow, Idaho.
Noai joins the tea party.
We also have room for chickens and guinea-fowl in the back. Some of the chickens are penned up. Others roam the backyard finding their own food. In this picture Jeremiah is feeding the guineas.
Being next to the wilds on the edge of the village means there are often unwelcome visitors, like this black cobra. When anyone sees a snake, they yell “SNAKE” and everyone drops what they are doing and comes to join the hunt. The only good snake is a …
At the bottom of our property we dug a fish pond. The children sometimes will swim here despite the fact that we once killed a small crocodile there once! Here, Andreas made a raft out of bamboo and floats on the pond.
Lot’s of things take place on the porch in the front of the house. Noai plays mancala (awalé in Côte d’Ivoire) here with her girl friends. The porch is where we receive people and sometimes hang out. It is also the place where I would hold Bible studies.
Delicacies like these large termites come once a year when the male termites fly out of their holes looking to start new colonies. They leave their holes when the first rains come. We fry them up with some butter and salt and they taste like buttery popcorn!
Sometimes we entertain large groups on the front porch. On this day we were treated to a visiting choir performance. A choir from another village came by the house to thank us for helping out the local Harris Church.
Hans with his friend Levi in the front yard.