I’ve had a very African welcome back to Zimbabwe – an invasion of critters in my house! One of my first nights back, I found a gigantic black millipede in my kitchen (called a “chongoloro” here). I quickly brought him outside, and upon stepping back inside, found a long, slimy brown slug in my bathroom. Got him outside, only to find ANOTHER chongoloro in the kitchen. Repeated the process of gently bringing him outdoors, but left the front door open a moment too long and a toad hopped inside! It took me a while to get him out, as he wedged himself underneath my cupboards.
I had to laugh that all of this happened within a matter of 5 minutes. It was as though the creatures had convened beforehand to plan this attack.
Another attack was carefully planned on me two nights ago, as I lay in bed, reading. I was minding my own business with a simple reading lamp, when suddenly, in a matter of minutes, almost 100 insects were flying through my room, including inside my not-yet-closed mosquito net! There were miniscule black gnat-like insects, so small and fast they were nearly impossible to swat. But I couldn’t very well leave them inside my sleeping quarters, as they tickle when they land on you! There were also these large biting flying ants that have an abdomen almost the size of a wasp!.. a few flies as well… and of course mosquitoes. But the worst of the lot were the 40-odd flying ants with moth-like wings. Thankfully easy to catch and not the grossest-looking, but with wings that fluttered too loudly for relaxation, as I sat trying to read. I busied myself for a good 20 minutes catching as many insects as possible in a tea cup and racing outside to throw them out, only to come back to what seemed like more insects. Finally, I had to give up on insect catching AND reading, turn off my light, and accept the fitful sleep that was awaiting me, filled with tickles from gnats and flitters of flying ant wings.
And last night, spiders started crawling out of the taps in my bathtub and bathroom sink. By this point, I’d given up trying to return the creatures outside, so I just left them there. I also left the wasp that was inside my bedroom where he was, but that turned out to be a bad idea, since later that day, I stepped on him…
“Welcome back to Zimbabwe”, seemed to say the critters, “we missed you!”
