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NEW ORLEANS: Miracle Hamster' latest unusual animal for Kramers
Family moves from Tanzania to face N.O. flood, rescue pet
By RELMA HARGUS
Advocate staff writer
NEW ORLEANS (11/1/2005)--Despite their short lives, Nina Kramer, 7, and Blaise Kramer, 6, have been close to some unusual animals. Heather, a.k.a. "The Miracle Hamster," is the latest.
This time last year, the youngsters had baboons, monkeys and hedgehogs roaming their yard in Arusha, Tanzania.
That doesn't count the four cats and four dogs they adopted while living there, or the 100-year-old, truck-tire-sized tortoise they found outside one day.
Arusha was their home for 18 months while their parents, Stacy and the Rev. Jerry Kramer, served as missionaries in the Episcopal Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro.
When the Kramers moved back to the United States earlier this year, the children left their pets behind. They went from a menagerie in Tanzania to a solitary hamster in New Orleans.
Then Katrina forced them to move again.
Mom and children evacuated first, but Heather was left behind.
Their dad, who is now rector at the Church of the Annunciation on Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans, had stayed to help parishioners unable to leave.
When he did leave, there wasn't room for Heather. The best he could do was leave food and water for her.
Not happy to be given that news, Nina and Blaise became increasingly upset, and Kramer said he decided to attempt a rescue.
"Our children had been in three schools in nine months and the one thing they had bonded with is the hamster. We lost everything, and the only thing they asked for was Heather," Kramer said.
He hitched a ride with a Dutch film crew to check on the church and their home.
Both will be "tear downs" because of damage sustained, Kramer said.
The bottom floor of their Upperline home was still covered in water when he arrived, he said.
He had to kick in a door on an upper floor.
"I turned a corner and saw what looked like a very wet rat," Kramer said.
Heather was supposed to be in her cage, but had escaped and chewed on the floorboards and also -- despite having the run of the dry third floor -- had managed to get wet.
"I picked her up and she was pitching a fit," Kramer said.
Once rescued from the house, Heather still faced the stifling heat outdoors. Kramer said he kept pouring cedar shavings on her to keep her cool.
"We call her Heather, 'The Miracle Hamster' because she survived what many did not," he said.
Heather was among the animals participating in the Blessing of the Pets on Oct. 4 at St. Luke's Episcopal Day School during celebration of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi.
Nina and Blaise are students at St. Luke's and living temporarily in New Roads with their parents; older brother John, 14, is staying in Houston with family.
Kramer makes frequent trips to New Orleans and maintains an office at St. Luke's where he continues to try to find parishioners who evacuated because of Katrina.
Restoration of the New Orleans church, where prayer books and Bibles once floated in 5 feet of water, is now the goal of both rector and congregation.
The water has drained, but mold is everywhere, Kramer said.
"We hope to salvage the old main altar, communion rail, pulpit and the
stained glass from our original church going back to 1844," Kramer wrote on a Web site he maintains concerning the church.
Despite having "only $15 in the bank," Kramer said his uptown congregation plans to rebuild and is "eager to get back to the work of ministry."
The church has already reinstituted Monday night Bible study, he said.
Members hope to have a temporary building on site soon.
The Kramers have experience with ministry challenges.
During their time in Tanzania, Stacy Kramer started a "much-needed" Alcoholics Anonymous group. Jerry Kramer served as dean at the 120-year-old cathedral in the country's capitol and was involved with planting seven churches.
Ministries included an orphanage and AIDS hospice.
Kramer became the first English-speaking person to baptize using the Maasai language.
He had an advance copy of the translation of the rite from the Church of Tanzania Book of Common Prayer and practiced relentlessly with a Maasai man who was secretary at the cathedral.
"He would say, 'you hurt my ears.' He would hit me and yell and scream when I would get it wrong," Kramer said.
"But I was able to baptize them in their own language."
Kramer said he had to bring the water for the baptism. The entire village was baptized at one time.
"They vote on it," he said.
The Kramer children learned Swahili while in Tanzania and gave their pets names in both languages.
Heather doesn't have a Swahili name, but she does have lots of love.
Nina said one of her favorite activities is "seeing Heather and her boll rolling around."
"It's really funny," she said.
Nina said Heather prefers broccoli and lettuce to hamster food.
"She holds the lettuce in her tiny little hands and she eats it," Nina said.
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