Saturday, February 13, 2010

Not Annoyed but Bugged

I’m sure that some people think immediately of bugs when they think of Africa. I mean, can’t you just picture the Siafu from the last Indiana Jones movie! (We really have Siafu in Kenya, but they aren’t quite that big nor do they kill humans.)

I’ve been having some buggy days. It started with an unusual amount of fruit flies hanging out in our kitchen. In fact they seem to be increasing. Since they are only mildly bothersome, I haven’t bothered to try to find the source and rid the place of them. I mean, we have been throwing out our past-its-prime fruit and veggies.

But then a couple days ago I was coming home in the evening and as I looked down to fit my key in the door I caught a brown scramble at my feet in the edge of my vision. I immediately thought of our tiny brown house mouse, so common in Minnesota. I’d never seen one here in Kenya. But as I got my eyes focused on the desperate-to-get-away creature, I saw that he wasn’t at all furry, but instead a very large cockroach. (Too bad I can easily identify them.)

I ran for the can of Doom and came back spraying until he croaked! I bet it was a half a can later. My Face Book friends read about this episode. It was the size of that one that really got to me.

Now this evening I was cutting up a mango into a bowl for supper. I haven’t had a sweet mango in several weeks. (It must not be mango season.) But I had been promised this kind were good. I had nearly all the meat off the pit when I noticed a few little black flecks. I thought it must be starting to rot at the pit. I cut deeper to see if it was a bad spot and out crawled a sizable bug, not huge, just way bigger than a fruit fly.

I shrieked and called my housemate to look at it. She agreed it was gross. I will get over it. But I have had enough of bugs for a while.

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