All the animals!

I posted some pictures of the animals that love here on the compound in my last post. There’s a lot of life here, and I wanted to provide some more details about what it’s like living with a lot of animals.

There’s now 3 dogs living here…they love playing with the kids and enjoy wandering around the campus. They’ve learned how to get food from the kitchen and usually sleep on the floor in someone’s room. This past week the mission got a new puppy named Teddy Bear. I’m happy to have a dog here to play with; I’ve been missing Mabel my Yellow Lab.

The donkeys’ names are Steven and Francis. Steven is Francis’ dad. Joe—one of the missionaries that was here some years ago—brought the first donkeys to the mission around 6 years ago. Mostly they just walk around and eat from the trash cans. They don’t usually bother anyone; although a few times Steven has walked up to me to see if I had any food and it was a little too close for comfort.

There are also a lot of cats here on the mission who are nice most of the time. They enjoy coming into the kitchen because they know they will get food scraps. During the day they enjoy being in Grace’s office and around people. At night time they usually go out hunting for bugs and small animals.

The goats and the sheep usually don’t come into the dorm areas, they usually graze when they are not in their pen. The goats like to jump on top of everything and I sometimes see them on trees with low branches or on the steps in the kitchen.

There are cows here on the mission; although, though I don’t see them too often. They are usually in a fenced in area towards the back of the mission. Sometimes they are let out to graze and they will wander around the mission. They’re harmless and just like to walk around slowly.

There is also a piggery on the mission run by the high school students who are studying agriculture. Right now there are around 60 pigs. Every two weeks the students slaughter some pigs and we do pork deliveries around town. This past week we had the most pork deliveries the mission has ever had—22 orders.

It has definitely been interesting living with so many animals, but it has been a lot of fun and something I have gotten used to.