Behind the Monkey Tails

Picture of monkey tail flowers from Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island, Canada[I told Husband I was writing a "kind of weird" blog post. I read it to him. He agrees; it's kind of weird.]

Our pack of curious missionary kids used to run all over the mission hospital compound when I was a kid, exploring. That was our favorite thing, exploring. Many of the activities we pursued were twists on the old favorites of kids anywhere, including in North America.

We climbed trees.

We built a clubhouse (albeit from coconut husks and fronds, which doesn't happen just anywhere).

We played with firecracker powder.

We twisted flowers together into bracelets.

We played hide-and-seek in the dark.

We rode our bikes up and down the one-lane paved roads.

We played dodge ball on the patch of grass beside the Third House.

And so on.

But one thing I'll bet most kids don't grow up next to was found right behind the monkey tail bushes: the incinerator. I can still smell it as I remember running up the little rise just below it and above our teacher's apartment house, on our way to climb the rambutan trees.

I don't recall details of how the incinerator was used, if I ever knew them. But I'm quite sure that Things That Were Taken Out of People in surgery or delivery were burned in it, because it gave off a peculiar smell, sort of like burning hair (yep, that's another fun thing we liked to do: light a candle and take a hair and watch it curl up and fizz in the flame). Knowing that our island probably didn't have a really hot-shot garbage disposal system, I'm guessing that bloody bandages were also incinerated, and other similar medically-related waste.

It was just a fact of life, the incinerator behind the monkey tails. I'll bet pretty much everyone has some "monkey tails" hiding something stinky in their lives, something they've gotten quite used to. Or maybe not.