Livin' in a Zoo

When Mirielle was a little older than Kellan we started teaching her all of the animal noises. A cow goes 'moo', a pig snorts, a rooster goes 'cock a doodle doo'. I always thought those sounds were so cute, until I had to live next to them.

It seems like no matter where you go, except maybe Manila, you are constantly surrounded by livestock in Philippines. Sometimes I feel like I am living on a farm. In the empty lot next to our house a cow roams around eating all day and we have chickens that float in and out of our yard through the chain link fence.

The roosters I have mostly gotten used to. I think just about every other person in the Philippines owns a rooster. They are BIG into cock fighting here. When we went to the beach the other day, we were driving through the middle of nowhere, nothing but tiny little bamboo houses here and there and out of nowhere appears a gigantic building. A big beautiful building, cememt with real roofing on it, nice paint job. And what was it? A 2 story cock pit, compliments of the government. Nice.....

Our neighbors to the front of us have pigs. Thankfully they are quieter than the pigs our other neighbors had at the last house we lived in. Those pigs would go crazy a couple times a day. I imagined that those pigs couldn't have sounded much worse than when Jesus cast the demons into the pigs and they all ran and drown themselves. So, anyways, I am VERY thankful to have quiet pigs for neighbors this go around. I don't think that there is a sound that sets me more on edge than a screaming pig. What is hard about living here, is that all of the windows in all of the rooms are always open, so there is NO place to go in the entire house to escape the noise. Even burying myself under a pillow doesn't drown out the sounds.

I have recently discovered the second most terrible sound ever made by an animal. A bleating goat. I always thought goats were kind of cute. Just a friendly little animal that you would see at the petting zoo. WRONG! Our neighbor that owns the pig recently purchased a few goats that now roam around the property. The first few days they were here I had to convince Mirielle that the noises she was hearing were really just goats. She thought that there was a child outside screaming for help. That is kind of what these goats sound like "HELP, HELP, HELP"! Drive me nuts!!! The goats tend to roam over to the empty lot on the other side of our house, over by the kitchen and dining area, in the evening while I am making dinner. So we sit and listen to goats crying all through dinner. It sounds like someone is dieing outside. I am convinced that missionaries need to come home on furlough just so they can have some peace and QUIET!