The Eighth Post

Remember that old game show Family Feud? With Rob Brough? Do you know he became a newsreader in Queensland after that show ended? And do you also know that his brother was former Federal Minister for Families, Communities and Indigenous Affairs and former future Prime Minister of Australia (he was aiming for it, mark my words) Mal Brough?

Come with me on a journey for a moment and imagine you are back on Family Feud circa 1992. Your loved ones are beside you on the panel. Rob, beaming at you with his million dollar smile and white guy curl-fro, has given you the topic: African wildlife.

What do you say? Lions, I bet. Tigers? No – hopefully one of your family members is clued-in enough to divert you from this folly. Tigers are found in Asia, my friend. Elephants, certainly. Giraffe, rhino, hippo, wildebeest even, if you’re really getting on a roll.

If you said insects, what would the survey say? I think it would say ‘BA-BAOW’ (for those who don’t remember Family Feud, that’s my attempted transcription of the sound effect they played when a team guessed something that didn’t appear on the survey. I have no idea how you would represent the sound effect they played when a team got something right – suggestions welcome from those who recall the sound). That is, unless a significant number of the survey cohort had actually spent time living in Africa.
I’m going on safari next week so hopefully these stats will change, but so far, a month into my stay in Kenya, my wildlife spotting tally reads thus:

lions – 0
zebras – 0
cheetahs – 0
elephants – 0
Kirk’s Dikdiks (a type of antelope, included here because a) it has an hilarious name and b) I don’t want to discriminate against the lesser known animals) - 0
previously unknown species of insect – 5342
of which gigantic, scary and/or man-eating – 5300

I freely admit that I was not entirely prepared for this. I did expect swarms of mosquitos, and came armed with tropical strength Aeroguard, but actually the mozzies have paled into insignificance against the multitudes of other flying, buzzing and crawling things that invade my room every evening.

Everything seems to be bigger, scarier, and meaner than its Australian brethren. For example. fireants are the size of your little finger (well, the nail anyway), and love love LOVE to bite the soft fleshy bits of any humans that happen to be in the vicinity. Actually, Wikipedia tells us that these ants do not in fact bite; rather they use their mandibles to grab on to the unfortunate victim while curling their abdomen around to hit the victim repeatedly with the sting that is located there. Wiki describes this as “a stinging frenzy” in which the ant may sting 8-10 times, and continue stinging even when its poison gland is empty. Insane. Two of our number have been hit by these hard-arses in the past week.

Then there are the cockroaches. We were warned before arrival that they can get pretty big over here, and that’s certainly true. So far the smallest one I’ve seen is comparable to the biggest ones in Sydney. I reckon I hit a new size record with one I saw the other night, but some of the volunteers who’ve been here longer than me tell me that bad boy was a runt compared to the real big daddies running around. I can only wait with a vague sense of dread until the morning I wake up with one snuggling up and trying to spoon me.

Besides that, there are massive black beetles, dragonfly-type things with fluffy wings that look like something out of Avatar, a huge hornet that makes a noise like a twin-engine Cessna when it’s flying around, kamikaze flying ants that dive-bomb you – and the half-prepared food – when you’re cooking dinner… the list goes on. Mozzies come well down the list, although they have started to appear in greater numbers in recent days. This has coincided with me changing the mosquito net that hangs over my bed.

When I first arrived here there were nine volunteers in the compound, and all the best mozzie nets were taken. The one I got had an odour which I will charitably describe as interesting, and four or five quite large holes in it. I have to big up Victoria Coorey here for giving me the benefit of her experience in the Amazon last year, with a tip to bring along Sellotape to patch up any holes in nets. While the patch job seemed to work, I looked on with envy at my roommate Luke’s shiny, sleek new net – a net which he didn’t even use because being from the country he’s tough as nails. He cared not a jot for even the largest insect, although they never came near him anyway – they came for me because they can smell fear.

When Luke headed back to Oz at the end of last week, I happily switched to his net. Unfortunately, all was not as it seemed. The first night I woke up at about 3am with mozzie bites all over my feet – I’d managed to kick my way through the net and both feet were sticking out into the kill zone. Macgyver-style, I solved this problem by weighing down the net at the end of the bed with a couple of shoes and settled back to sleep, only to wake again a couple of hours later with more bites – this time on my hand – and a buzzing mosquito sound coming from inside the net! Horrified, I switched the light back on, made short work of the little bastard and then did a scan for holes. Sure enough, there were several. Out came the tape and I patched everything I could find.

Unfortunately, these turned out to be merely the first shots of a three-night battle between man and net, in which each night I would be woken by new bites or by mozzies buzzing next to my ear. This would necessitate further scans and further patching of holes, a few more hours’ sleep and then the cycle would start again. On the third and climactic night, I woke up three times, each time finding a new mozzies inside the net. In my searching and patching I noticed a larger flying thing buzzing around outside the net. At first I paid it little heed – the holes on that side appeared all to be patched. However, this particular creature possessed an evolutionary advantage relative to mosquitos – it could crawl as well as fly. It stealthily made its way to where the net met the ground, moved to the underside and, like a ninja, climbed its way up the inside of the net. When it got above the bed level, BAM! It launched itself at my poor unsuspecting person.

I’m ashamed to say I did not react well to this. Anyone who’s seen me when a cockroach has crawled over my hand will know what I’m talking about. Basically, I squealed like a little girl, tangled myself up in the net as I tried to get away from the creature, and fell out gasping on to the floor. I grabbed a thong, swivelled around and swung blindly as the thing came round for another pass. With a thwack! I made contact and saw the two paper-thin wings, now separated from their owner, fluttering to the ground. I never found the body.

After that rollercoaster ride and three interrupted nights’ sleep, last night passed without incident. I’m hopeful that this means all the holes have now been found, but maybe it’s just the calm before the storm…


BK

p.s. while we’re celebrating the wonders of African wildlife, I highly recommend this: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Holding-your-cat-above-your-head-when-singing-The-Circle-of-Life/111284848887066?v=photos


Check out the third photo in particular. As one of the comments reads, “I think this might just be the best thing I’ve ever seen.”