Above: Home invader that entered the premises through an open shower drain
Monday 5/18/09 Gulu, Uganda
First came the white ants. Clouds of them revolved around the lights outside, creating fluttering orbs of long wings and stubby bodies.
Moths arrived; a fist-sized one with disproportionately long antennae stuck itself to the railing one night and refused to move.
Without warning, grasshoppers, some inches long and splashed with color, landed from outer space.
A frog climbed up through the shower drain and sent an intern screaming.
Yesterday, ants–the viscious, blood-thirsty kind–found my shoes as I was watering the tomato plants. From one’s shoes, legs aren’t hard to find. So I wasn’t surprised when piercing pinches of pain started sliding up past my knees, but how did two manage to get onto my shoulders?
*****
The rain is here, and with it have come her creatures. Some have been waiting months for the feel and sound of her coaxing patter on the skin of the land; moisture signaling a frenzy of ephemeral birth. Others, less energetic ones, seem to have stumbled blindly into the forests of fresh spring grasses, like lost fools bumbling down the dark streets of a foreign city.
