You might be a jungle missionary if...
You might be a jungle missionary if...
- You use the words "nice" and "outhouse" in the same sentence
- You save your plastic wrap and aluminum foil for future uses
- Your kid's temporary play pen is a rubber footlocker
- Your kid's permanent play pen is lumbar and chicken wire strung across the living room.
- You sit in a hammock, are told a kid peed on it, and your response is, “eh, it's dry now.”
- You actually try the native drink (masato) which is made out of chewed up and spit out, fermented yucca.
- You drink a huge bowl of your neighbor's masato because parties last until the masato runs out, and you don't want to be up past 9pm.
- You get really ticked when you kid spits his eggs on the floor. (Eggs have to be flown in.)
- Your shower is standing under the gutter in the rain.
- At 8 pm, you can barely keep your eyes open, and you can't sleep past 6 am if your life depended on it.
- You have to get up 3 times a night to pee (I don't understand this one. It is a weird phenomenon all jungle missionaries experience.)
- Bathing is a family event that involves a hike to the river.
- Six year olds laugh at you when you try to talk to them.
- Since you have no refrigeration, you find yourself eating the same beans for lunch, dinner, and then breakfast the next morning unless it goes bad first.
- You have to explain the existence of black people to your neighbor who
saw a picture in a book and wanted to know if it was real. - You hear about a 13 year old getting married, and it seems normal.
- When you ask your 30+ year old neighbor who is one of the little kids
running around, she responds, “my grandfather.”Similarly, you might be a jungle missionary kid if...
- You know the taste of 100% deet.
- You were potty trained in an outhouse
- You get told regularly “don't pee pee in your diaper, pee pee off the porch”
- You teethed on boiled yucca and sticks
- You produce so many diapers that it is impossible for your dad to get the trash pile to burn
- You get spanked for turning on the lights (we have very limited solar electricity)
- Instead of the park, you mom takes you to the airstrip to play
- You and the rooster have crowing matches
- Going for a walk in the stroller means off-roading
- You can say hello in three languages before you turn three
- Your first word after “mama” and “dada” is a four syllable word in a language less then 1000 people speak.