This is a lonely blog now, with only me to write in it since Melissa and Julia have gone back home. :( Fortunately, or unfortunately, I'm never really alone in the house, there is always plenty of wildlife to keep me company. I share my house with lots of gecko's, iguanas, a bat, a mouse, a scorpion and a dog. The dog is the most annoying member of the zoo, but the bat seems harmless. If I ever run out of food I can make iguana soup – the local brothers keep offering to kill one for me so that I can eat it... so far I haven't really felt hungry!

Wissy hiding from the bat.

Even with the loss of Wissy and Jool, our cong now has a new member.... a chicken! A squawking chicken fluttered out of the storage cupboard before the meeting the other day. The elderly brother who is the night guard at the hall found it wandering around the garden, and thought “chicken soup”, and put it for safekeeping in the storage cupboard – where else would you keep a chicken in the kingdom hall!?

If you ever complain about hospitals at home, think again! Today I went to visit a Japanese sister who was knocked off her bicycle by a bus last night. The hospital was over-crowded with people and bodies everywhere. There are no stretchers or porters, so the sick or accident victims are carried in the arms of their family until a bed can be found for them. Quiet and privacy is unheard of as beds are crammed into all possible spaces in the wards; hygiene is non-existent with cockroaches crawling all over the place.
In spite of all this horror, it is at times like this that the incredible brotherhood is really seen. Within less than ½ hour of the accident, the ward was full of brothers and sisters. It seems as though almost every Witness in the town has been to visit. The injured sister's first concern was her Bible studies, so she was frantically giving out the addresses of her studies to the sisters so that they could visit and explain why she couldn't come. The sister doesn't seem to have any very serious injuries, so hopefully she will be back on her feet, but perhaps not her bicycle, and with her studies as soon as possible.