Toad in a Pit

Well, the inevitable happened, something alive finally fell into our 16 foot deep septic hole (6 feet wide and as of now without anything foul in it). To the delight of every child within screaming distance, a toad was spotted hopping around in circles on the bottom; all that was left was to get it out. After tossing dirt clods at it for a while and realizing that it could not climb out with any amount of encouragement, the rescue effort began. An empty 3 liter Coke bottle was cut in half and attached to the end of a long piece of wire. Señor Toad wanted nothing to do with that and hid himself in a little overhang. Down went the stick on the end of the rope to pop him out. To a chorus of joyful screams, the helpless animal was prodded from his hiding place.

At about this time, the village teacher arrived to see what 15 of his pupils, two white people, a mason, and a preacher were so interested in. Full of wisdom, he informed the children that the terrified animal was probably not overly interested in climbing into the foreign container lowered down by screaming monsters in the sky. “A sack!” he yelled. Five kids went running for a plastic bag. When he had it, he used the wire to make it open wide and lowered it down. As it turns out, the toad was even less interested in climbing into the bigger, noisier thing lowered down by the chief of the sky monsters. Failing twice, we realized what had to be done. The children had now realized without intervention, the toad would die Someone was going down the hole.

Once we had brought the rope from the car we discovered something else interesting. Rural children are about as interested in going into a massive hole as a toad is interested in climbing into a strange space vessel. Eventually, Naul, 14 years old (more on him in a later post) accepted the mission. We tied the rope around his waist, and down he goes. About that time, his mother and our next door neighbor, Arhelia, stops by to check out the fuss.

¨What´s going on?”

“We lowered one of your (12) children down into the awful pit.”

“Haha, sounds good.”

Needless to say, she’s seen a lot in her life and was not surprised that her child had been lowered into a pit to retrieve some hideous amphibian. Following this interchange Señor Toad was unceremonially plopped into the sack by Naul and hauled out, savior clutching him firmly in hand. Very skinny, tired and clearly grateful, we took the toad to a calm, brushy spot and set him free.

I like to think that the toad will be grateful and will come to eat mosquitoes every night at our homes. We’ll let you know how that goes.

Damos gracias a Dios por: salvarnos de nuestros propios pozos y problemas.

We give thanks to God for saving us from our own pits and problems.