6.10.10 Bugs

As the insects here are a daily presence, I feel it’s time they deserve a blog entry.
First, the fruit flies are incredible here. They seem to be able to multiply within seconds. I can prepare a salad and in the time it takes to eat it, fruit flies seemingly have hatched, reproduced (maybe multiple times, probably have gone through a few generations even) and have covered the dirty cutting board. They seem to be everywhere there is a bit of moisture and never seem to leave. I have a cloud (ok very small cloud…) of fruit flies around my head as I brush my teeth in the bathroom and usually everytime I move a plate in the kitchen another cloud flies up.

The other constant inhabitants are ants. But the ants here are about half the size of the little ants you have crawling around your kitchen counters in the US. However, what they lack in size, they make up in numbers. Again, anywhere there’s a bit of moisture, or food of course, there is a line of ants marching. Their speed in seeking out a bit of something sweet that has spilled is impressive. They also always somehow find a way to crawl around my hands and arms even when I think I have had no contact with their marching line.

While these cohabitants are relatively benign, and are easy roommates to have, the mosquitos and biting flies are definitely not welcome. My host family recently forced me to put up my mosquito net around my bed, they thought I was really crazy for waiting so long to use it. We’ve taken pretty serious measures to control the mosquitos in the house nowadays- all the windows stay closed (not as stifling hot as you would imagine surprisingly) and bedroom doors are to be closed at all times too. The mosquitoes haven’t really been bothering me much, before the net there were one or two buzzing in my ears at night but nothing to drive me crazy. I realized last night, the only problem is if there’s one stuck in your net for the night…

The biting flies however are the worst by far. They’re tiny- about the size of fruit flies but completely vicious and relentless. Luckily, they’re really only a problem for me when I travel to remote villages in the jungle for my job (not very often). I learned the hard way the importance of wearing protective clothing last week. I went to a community meeting in shorts thinking it’s ok, I have my DEET bugspray. They seemed to be more attracted to the DEET…my legs look like I have some sort of horrible disease and the kids in this community thought it was pretty funny that I was being eaten alive. I’ve been told the longer I’m here the less the bugs will bite or maybe the more accustomed I’ll be to their venom. I look forward to that day.

I am often awed by the beauty and rarity of other insects here daily. One of my favorites is the Blue Morph butterfly. It’s a giant bright blue butterfly that I’ve seen a few times and everyone stops what they’re doing to point it out everytime (go look it up, but really more impressive in real life). Other impressive but not so beautiful nor pleasant insects include the spider that lives in the corner of my friend’s room that’s about the size of my palm. He says he doesn’t mind it, however because it eats the other insects flying around (perhaps he’s also a little afraid to remove it). The past few nights he’s also had giant cicada/moth-like insects enter through the window. They come in and make a whole lot of noise with their giant wings (I’m talking about the size of a sparrow) untll they settle near the light and wait to be removed. While they’re a big nuisance and cause angry awakenings in the middle of the night for my friend, it was great amusement for me to watch him catch them, throw them out the window and have them fly right back in seconds later.

My mother will be surprised to hear that I’ve changed my attitude a bit since living here surrounded by insects. It drove her crazy that I never killed the spiders living in my bathroom at home (we lived in peaceful harmony, there was no need to kill them unnecessarily) and I preferred to bat away mosquitos rather than kill them. But here I don’t have much of a problem turning on the shower even if there’s a small family of ants in it and smacking mosquitos. There’s definitely enough to go around here, a few won’t be missed.