Life in the Bush House

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Jenny, Steph, and Ali got here yesterday evening so we are now all settled into our new bunks in the appropriately named “Bush House”, as it sits at the back edge of the property in “the bush”.

After dinner we came back to the house to settle in for the night. We noticed before dinner, however that the water wasn’t working properly for the showers. Everything else was fine, but we’d just flushed a toilet so we thought it was related to that and decided just to give it more time. So tonight when Ali went to take her shower, the water still wasn’t working. We had been using water in all the other rooms so we decided to again wait to see if time made any difference.

We sat around chatting while waitng on the water to miraculously start working when all of a sudden we hear this loud beeping sound as if from a smoke detector. We search around and decide it is coming from the battery that runs all the lights in the house. We quickly turn it off as Jenny runs to get the flashlights. Steph and I are now sitting in the dark living room for about 2 minutes while I call Dr. Tom to see if he can help. Just as he answers the phone, something in the dining room makes a loud scurrying noise right behind me. Steph and I both scream and run to the other end of the hall as I try to calm down enough to apologize to Dr. Tom and convince him that we are not crazy. He explains that there are screeching owls that live in our ceiling, that our battery is dying and that our water tank is drained and he will have to come turn on a valve to pump water into it in the morning since it’s already so late.

I thanked him for the explanation and hung up the phone relaying the news. Jenny walks me to my room with the flashlight and just as she exits the door I hear someone whisper through my window…”hello?” I let out a very high-pitched squeal as Dr. Tom again says “hello?” Jenny and Steph come running back in, hearing nothing but the squeal. “Dr. Tom?” I ask. “I decided just to fix your tank now,” he explains through my dark window.

We invite him inside and he agrees to come look at our battery situation as well. We bring out our flashlights and walk over to the closet; still hesitant from the loud clanking sound we’d heard earlier in the dining room. Just as we lean in to watch what buttons he’s pushing and what plugs go where, a flyswatter that had been hanging on the wall falls and brushes against Jenny’s arm. She screams and jumps scaring all of us and again we are left trying to explain our sanity… I’m not sure of our success.

The “Bush House” can be a scary place after dark.