"There's A Dog In The House!"

(this was written in my journal last Tuesday, October 28th. There is no Halloween celebration here but they do Celebrate Dawali. Diwali is a major Indian festival, and a significant festival in Hinduism where the lights or lamps signify victory of good over the evil within every human being.)
It’s been Dawali and they have been celebrating with firecrackers and fireworks for a week. Everyday we see a few more and its very noisy here. Elder K says the number of Firecrackers that are blown up in 1 minute would have lasted him for a whole year when he was a kid.
Tonight it’s totally crazy. People on our roof have fireworks and sparklers and fire crackers. We are 7 stories up and looking at the whole city. The fireworks are all over the city. Not just in one spot but on every street and corner. When they light the 1000 string of firecrackers it looks like their houses are on fire. If everything weren't made of concrete the whole city would be on fire. It’s a panoramic view of fireworks. Never saw anything quite like it in my entire life.
We came back to the apartment and the Nielsons (a couple from Visak) went to bed. They were so tired from their 10 hour train ride. We shut the kitchen door and they shut their bedroom door to keep the noise level down. They tell us the fireworks will last all night long. (and they did!!) We’ll turn our fan up just to shelter the noise that goes on outside. Elder K and I went into our office (next to the living room) to work on our Career workshop for YSA conference. As I was working away, Rebecca called on SKYPE. Within a few minutes of her call I saw something walk across the living room floor. I said, “Elder K, there is a dog in our house.” He said, “You’ve really lost it….There can’t be a dog in our house.” Then I started going crazy inside because I realized it was a monkey. So I started screaming, “There’s a monkey in our house!” He made me stay in the office and shut the door and he went out to find it. I realized he didn’t have anything to protect himself and the monkeys can be very aggressive. (Elder Toleofoa and the banana story) So I opened the door and gave him a big push broom. He said, “What’s this for?” I said, “Protection!” He took it and I went back to the office to give Rebecca an update.
Elder K was looking under the table in the entryway….under the bed….We realized we had left our bedroom door open. When Elder K looked on our balcony in the bedroom he saw 2 of the bigger monkeys sitting on the ledge of the balcony. He just shut the door and came to tell me we were safe. Elder K said that he thinks the monkeys were afraid of the screaming lady so they left immediately.
I felt very fortunate because the monkeys are thieves. My purse was laying on the bed. If they had stolen my purse my identity would have been missing as well as my money and my credit and debit card. It was careless of me to leave my purse on my bed with the door open! With 30 monkeys living near by you never know.