The plague of the grasshoppers

Last week we were taken over , the house as well as Noel orphanage ( my small little universe) by grass hoppers. Many many many grasshopers. I felt like it was one of the plagues of Egypt when Moses wanted to leave to go to the promised land.Apparently a few nights a year the grasshoppers come out in their thousands . Well it all started like this we had kids in the house as we do every night and then suddenly there was a flurry of collecting pans and containers to catch the grasshoppers. I decided that I wanted to join . Outside ,I quickly changed my mind , there were about a hundred kids and what felt like a million grasshoppers,above by the outside light. They jumped on my hair, my clothes, my back so much .  I think largely the group of boys who were there had a lot to do with that as I discovered later when I saw a boy throw a handful of grasshoppers at me.. (don't worry I got him back) so I ran back in my home screaming . The grasshoppers had followed me home and were jumping around the kitchen and the front door , so I grabbed a towel and embraced my fears.I grabbed myself a bottle and started catching them first I caught one , I was so proud , it only took me a few minutes to catch , and I didn't exactly use my hands , but still I caught one . So outside I went to face the grasshoppers,  a few kids helped me to fill my bottle of living grasshoppers there must of been at least 200 in one bottle, I caught at least twenty myself and one with my bare hands ;) .So proudly I went back to the house to show the kids my loot . I discovered that in the kitchen the kids were busy, there were about twenty kids stuffed in our cupboard size kitchen all with pockets , bottles, pans , cups , bags full of grasshoppers and they were coooking them alive in the frying pan . The funniest sight in the world , and actually the most disgusting was seeing living grasshoppers probably 70 at a time cooked in a frying pan with a lid above it which was so small for the pan that the grasshoppers were escaping . Animal rights activists would have had a heart attack. But its the way of life here, after the first batch was cooked, I tried one pulled the wings off and the scaley bit and ate it.It tasted like prawns or chicken or mushroom or somethign along those lines,it was actually really good. Soon we had 50 kids maybe more sitting eating grasshoppers in our house , dad liked the grass hoppers just as much as me , then again we have been deprived off meat lately. There were wings everywhere and living grasshoppers , and kids running in with new bottles completely full. It was absolute and utter chaos. When everyone left (the noise control came and shut the party down..literally) we spent a few hours cleaing up all the mess. The next day some small kids came to help get rid of the grasshoppers .There were still so many everywhere and in the most unlikely places.The next night there were also grasshoppers but not as many as the night before..This week has been very good except for the times my heart stopped (when I took the kids to watch football ,four of the kids did a runner , and I heard they were heading for gisenyi but actually they were heading home , after an hour of looking for them freaking out, I was not amused to find out that they had just headed home early without saying anything to me) and the two kids that left last week have come back!!! John who is Blind wasnt having a good stay because he was left alone in a small house with nothing to do and nowhere to go , Jacky who apparentlywill return to day according to all the kids (I really hope this is true , but somehow doubt it ) , could not cook so her mother didn't want to keep her . I am so glad that the kids have an option of returning to the orphanage , the future is unclear of what will happen to Noel orphanage , but this may not be the case in the near future, something which scares me and the kids immensely. Dad is very busy doing all the stuff that he usually does.We went out for pizza at serena the other night it was very nice. The kids recently also had a dancing performance in gisenyi and we all sat on the back of the truck for a bumpy ride to gisenyi , it was super fun and made me think the tourists that come to rwanda really don't get the great experiences that we do, I would much rather be riding with twenty kids on the back of the truck , than in a taxi, and I would much rather eat grasshoppers with great company than western meals in a really fancy hotel.And I would much rather dance and sing and play and teach and learn and watch and walk with the kids than do anything else in the whole world. I only have nine days left. They will go fast. I dont want to go but I think I have already established that. The moment I leave I will be counting my money and working out on paper exactly how much I have to work in order to come back here .
KEZA