I came to Africa knowing that I am not a big “bug” fan. I am not terrified of them. I just don’t really like them. Granted, I had fun making my “bug” collection
in high school and I CAN appreciate their contribution to society – circle of
life and all. But if we could figure out
a way to get rid of them without destroying the environment, I would be okay
with that. Lying on the clinic floor the
other night at midnight, bugs crawling all over, I began thinking about what I
DO NOT like about these little creatures…
So in NO particular order, here is a top ten list of my
least favorite little creepy crawlies……
1.
Ants – Africa seems to have an abundance of
ants. Some are tiny and are quite large. We currently have a nest of red sugar ants in
our kitchen under the counter (which we thought we had gotten rid of but
rediscovered yesterday when I inadvertently flooded the kitchen floor by
leaving a faucet on. When the water ran
under the counter, it pushed out lots of these big red ants with their eggs –
NASTY!)
There are also driver ants –
which are black ants that travel in thick lines. There are little ones and big soldier ants
that form tunnels over the rest of them.
They are very destructive to anything in their paths. They have been known to eat chickens and
other animals live and strip their bones bare.
If you get in the middle of them, watch out. Sometimes they crawl up your legs until they
hit a tight spot – i.e. a belt or something – and then they bite! And they hurt – and they are hard to detach
from your body. I am told that in the past,
people used to use the big soldier ants as sutures – they would place the ant
on a cut, let it bite down, and then pop off the body – leaving the pinchers
and head in place until the cut healed.
Driver
ants are prevalent during the rainy season.
(It can be kind of funny – in a sadistic sort of way – to watch someone
else who wandering unknowingly into driver ants – people will strip off their clothes
in no time flat to get the little biting things off them!) The other day, they were
all over our back porch- and starting to come into the house. (We can often
tell when driver ants are around because we see crickets, spiders, and other
insects in abundance on the walls, trying to get away from the ants.) If we weren’t at home, they would be welcome
to come through my house, and clean out any rodents or roaches that might be
present. However, we were home, so were less interested in that prospect.
2.
Spiders – I can do some spiders. We have a big wall spider that lives on our
bathroom and I know he eats mosquitoes. I
don’t bother him and he doesn’t bother me.
I do not, however, like spiders who scurry at me, or whose eyes reflect
back at me when I am walking at night.
Some spiders here get very large- as big as your hand. I also am not a big fan of the webs they
leave in my house – it ruins the decor! I have woken up before with a line of
spider bites across my body.
3.
Centipedes – These also seems to come out during
the rains. Sometimes we find piles of
hundreds of these nasty little things.
They come into the house and leave a bad odor when you kill them. (One of them was approaching my head as I was
lying on a plastic sheet on the dirty clinic floor the other night – waiting
for a baby delivery. I quickly smashed
it, but had to live with the lingering smell for a while.)
4.
Mosquitos – thankfully we don’t have many mosquitoes in our house. At night, we
sleep under nets to keep them away. But
the clinic is another matter. I have
been there two times at night recently in the rainy season for baby deliveries
and the mosquitoes are horrible. They
bite constantly and they buzz in your ears.
When Lizzy and I were there the first night, she got over 30 bites on
one foot alone. So now I carry bug spray
in my baby delivery bag – I am fairly certain that is not standard protocol in
the developed world! On top of that,
they carry malaria, which kills so many people here.
5.
Other flying insects – Can’t stand little flying
bugs that fly into your eyes or ears at night.
These also bring out bats – another creature that I CANNOT stand –
especially when you are outside at night and can feel the wind created by them
flying by your face!)
6.
Grasshoppers – These little things are wreaking
havoc on our garden. They need to go
away!
7.
Caterpillars – Black caterpillars are all over
right now. They will sting you with
their hairs if you touch them. As a kid
growing up in Africa, we were told – and put into practice- that if you were
stung by a caterpillar, you should cut it open and rub the guts on the
sting. It seemed to work, though I must
say that the thought grosses me out as an adult! On top of eating my garden, they come in the
house, and if you step in them, their guts stain the floor for a LONG time!
8.
Worms – worms are disgusting, especially when
they are coming out of a person, crawling under their skin where you can see
them and trace their path, or crawling across the whites of people’s eyes. Enough said!
9.
Flies – Flies are just gross! You can see them landing on poop – and then
they land in our house, on our food.
They are abundant in the clinic – where people come in with festering sores. We are also having rodent problems in the
clinic, so Sana put out rat poison, which was effective, but the rodent died
somewhere we could not see, and is currently decaying there – leaving a
horrible smell and drawing all kinds of flies!
One day, I was helping to take care of a little girl who had burns
covering at least half of her body. We
washed her and bandaged her. The smell
was overwhelming and the flies were everywhere.
The person I was with asked me to pray for healing for her – so I
did. As I opened my mouth to start
praying, a fly flew in and I swallowed it.
It gagged me – thinking about where that fly had landed first!
. .
Toads and frogs – Not a big fan of toads. Whenever I see one, I look around for a snake
following it – trying to catch and eat it.
That is likely from watching too many National Geographic shows. It is unnerving at night. Frogs are not so bad. In fact, I find tree frogs quite cute. However, I had a rather bad experience with
one the other night. I woke up in the
middle of the night to go to the bathroom and discovered a tree frog on the wall
in our hallway. Not sure how he ended up
there – as he was a long way from a tree of any kind. Since I think they are cute, I decided to
spare his life, so picked up a trash can so I could move him into it and carry
him outside.
By this time, Hannah was
also awake so I asked her to help me. We
got him in the bucket, and I was feeling quite benevolent as I carried him to
the back door. I opened it to let him
out and suddenly felt a nasty squish under my heel. I picked up my foot and we discovered the
tree frog – now quite flat and flailing about – on the rug. Apparently he had jumped out when I was not
looking and landed right where I was about to step. If you have never stepped on a frog in the
middle of the night in your bare feet, I DON’T recommend it. It is quite a disgusting feeling – I have to
say.
I was so grossed out and was
begging Hannah – who was laughing hysterically, to please get me something to
wipe the guts off. We flipped him off
the rug and he was immediately eaten by a cat.
Turning back down the hall, we found another frog. Strange, because we have never had a frog in
the house before – and here we had 2! I
made Hannah carry that one in a bucket – though, because of her prior knowledge
about the jumping abilities of tree frogs and her bare feet – continuously
tapped on the bucket with a shoe to keep it in.
We were congratulating ourselves for releasing it without incident –
watching it hop away – when BAM, it was snatched by another kitten. Circle of life, I suppose!
Anyway, try as I might to appreciate the good they do, I
would be a happy woman if my daily life didn’t not involve any of the aforementioned
creatures – especially in the dark!
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