The first instalment of this blog was written in late March, before I left Chitokoloki on 12 April: the final portion was completed after I arrived home. Apologies for delay as usual.
‘Having started late with blog writing during this visit, I must now seek to make amends and send off a second posting quickly. There is certainly enough to write about.
Last night my neighbours had an invasion in the early hours of the morning – and I narrowly avoided one. Tim got up at around 02.00 to go to the bathroom and suddenly wondered whatever were all the black things around his feet. Army ants, and millions of them! They were entering through the bathroom window and marching along the grout lines of the floor tiles through the lounge/dining -room and kitchen onto the shared verandah at the back. My kitchen door was firmly closed, but they were just starting to think about coming in when Tim found them. First reaction was to run for the Doom spray which did at least confine them to the area they already occupied, and then he and Mary, his wife, spent an hour brushing the house out. There were literally piles of black ants, some still wriggling, on the verandah this morning and the broom was put to good use again. These ants eat everything in their path – plants, spiders, bats…. There are even stories of human beings getting covered in them and suffocating to death. Apparently, if they decide to visit you, the best plan is to move out till they go. They will leave the place very clean, for sure.