Cockroaches, Spiders, and Mambas...Oh, My!

Jan. 4th
I really HATE cockroaches.
It's cockroach season. Mum says her previous house did not have any at all, but this place is infested--particularly the kitchen. She just killed one with her finger, by the way. She said they feel furry. Ick with a capital I!
I don't mind the baby ones so much. They look like any other very tiny bug or beetle in Canada, and they're easy to squash (NOT with my finger!). But the big ones? I really HATE the big ones. Most have been about the length of my thumbnail. I've been keeping a shoe handy to squash them. They move FAST--and if they see/feel you coming they will drop to the floor from the fridge or counter and hit the ground running for the nearest crack. Yuck.
Mum read that eucalyptus leaves are toxic to cockroaches, so she picked leaves and placed them everywhere. When she got up the next morning the cockroach babies were munching on what was left of those poor leaves. So the battle rages on.


The fridge had been smelling horribly since the night I got here. Mum had cleaned it out twice, yet the stench of rotten meat remained. Turns out that the bones Arnold got from the butcher were smelly and he'd left them in a bag on the kitchen floor overnight! But removing the bag still left the stink behind. The fridge was cleaned again--and 4 rotten eggs were found in the door holder. Peeeyeeewww! Tonight Mum bought more dog bones--from the same butcher. When we carried them out of the store...yep, they smelled bad, too. Mum stuck them in the fridge freezer for the night. (Jan. 5th update: I got a small, plastic wrapped package of eggs out of the fridge to make rice pudding for Mum. Two of the eggs had cracked and had tiny flies and maggots all over them. Double Ick with a double capital I!)


I had said that I would post photos and videos. One small problem, though: Wednesdays are blackout nights. There are weekly blackout periods from place to place across Malawi because of the suffering economy. Power is supposed to come back on at 10:00 p.m. So, that's why I didn't post photos and videos tonight.  No electricity.
Oh--and no water since last night, either. The city is adding some pipe to an area, so they shut off all of the water here. Yesterday the school had no water. Today, it's the other way around.


So, I'm off to bed: smelly from sweating all day, blocking the thoughts of cockroaches from my dreams, and hoping there's power in the morning so I can print off a chart because I'm going to play and sing for the first time at school for chapel.


I hear the puff of "DOOM" bug spray coming from the kitchen. Mum is feeling sorry for me, I think ;) Did I tell you that I really HATE cockroaches? Just sayin'...


P.S.
I saw two big spiders and a baby black mamba (snake) yesterday. The spiders are on the inside wall above the office door. Linda says they're harmless. I took pictures of them for Rachel. She offered to go get a student to remove them but I told her they didn't bother me (too much). Mum and the principal (Lawrence Banda) were showing me the little unused room that will soon be my office. A student picked up a piece of bulletin board off of the floor as we turned to go. He dropped the board and jumped away, and I saw a little coal-black snake wiggle into the corner. It was about 40 cm long.  Baby mambas can bite the day they're born. Not to be messed with. Mum handed the student a nearby broom to kill the snake.

Spider #1

Spider #2

----------LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE :)----------

Lady: she decided yesterday that she's my special friend :)

Simba: letting it all hang out ;)

Rosie

Solomon

Another market: on our way to visit a

KVChurchesAfrica executive member

Part of menu from Ali Baba Restaurant:

Mum's favourite place

Does $930 sound like a lot for a small pizza?

There are about 167 Kwacha to 1 Can/US dollar.

So in our currency that would be $7.63 (no tax).