BUGS BUGS Insects

Dusk here at Kufunda Village is about a constant barrage of attacks on my ankles, arms, and any exposed skin for that matter. Summer means it’s the rainy season, which means this place is ALIVE! From creeping vines, to head high grasses of all varieties, to Msasa trees bearing pods, to huge flowering wild marigolds. All this plant abundance spills out to the insect kingdom, and we have a wonderful variety of bugs to enjoy, swat and marvel at. Maybe farm kids and people who have lived in the bush are used to this, but coming from the windblown summer of Cape Town, this is all worth mentioning.

 

Firstly, we have a small ‘pet’ rain spider who lives under the picture frame next to our bed. He/she peeks out usually at night. I think her sisters live under every picture frame in the house (and there are quite a few). Calm, ever present and flat to the wall. She can stay. Every evening there are a bunch of Christmas /summer beetles of different sizes who manage to find their way into the shower. It seems like they spend the entire night trying to dig their way out through the grout between the bathroom tiles – with no success. The flying ants that come into the cottage with their long drippy delicate wings are definitive summer bugs and remind me of my childhood on hot balmy nights in Joburg after the rain. 
 
There is a termite hole that looks about 2 meters deep in our ‘driveway’ to the cottage, and we have to just learn to live in harmony with the ants. All the ants. It is usually about two days after we sweep the house, that the ants and termites have found a crack in the house structure and have started piling out sand again. So there are little piles of scattered sand all over the house. Some woodland forest ants are as big as 50c pieces… and if you lift the layers of leaf debris in the forest, there are a myriad of other bugs.

 

Lush green forests and boulders to explore in and around the village 

In the shared office, which is a room in our hosts house, the leggy wasps with loud buzzers in their wings fly in and out the open windows, always looking for new nest sites. I know they have a nest in a certain lever arch file, busy building with mud and waspy spit and are creating a new one under the desk. I’ve learnt that these yellow legged ones are pretty harmless and won’t sting, unless seriously provoked. Recently, one started creating a nest in the side cushion of our couch!

 

Beautiful patterns on this moth the size of a human fist!

Then there are the mantids. Flying in and around at night. Sitting patiently in our mosquito net, waiting to catch a slow smaller creature for a midnight snack. I love them. They are like moths here. Ah, and the moths…! Works of art. Some are leaf-like, some are designed to instill fear or admiration. Gabriel is petrified of moths. Weird, as he loves most other insects. But he’s had some horrid showers with the oversized moths flapping in his space, and trying to land on his naked body. We all have a good laugh while he is shrieking.

 

Azara with her moth 'brooch'

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the insects (do people say that, enjoy insects?) in this part of Zimbabwe and keep finding new bugs to observe. I just wish I had a bug book with us to do some proper identification. We do have some tiny scorpions running around, I had one run out my shoe over my arm as I was getting ready for a run. Luckily no sting this time! Not like the last time I sat on a scorpion at 5am in our tent in the Northern Cape, just before a 15km trail run. That poison coursed through me and I ran across land in a slight delirium. After I finished the race, I had to sleep for 3 hours…. 

Lace wing found in the forest

Some of the irritating insects also occur, like the daytime mosquitoes, and the midges who hang around the horses, trying to bite in their ears, and just irritate us humans. And the perpetual fruit flies who want to devour our mangoes and bananas…. And we did swim in a lily pond a few weeks ago which had tiny snails that stuck to our skin – Bilharzia eek ??? But overall they are fabulous. Let’s talk again in a few months, I might have a different tune.

Written by Jacqueline

Flowering grasses that is home to hundreds of bugs