Distinguished Visitors

When you live in Africa, you never know what type of visitors might show up at your house. They come in all shapes and sizes - some small, and some quite big. And some of them are unwelcome guests, and we do our best to chase them away (or kill them, if it doesn't create too big of a mess).

Before I go much further (and risk being reported by you to the police), I should tell you that the visitors I'm referring to are of the non-human kind. There are many of these visitors here in the jungles of Africa, and we'll start with the smallest and work our way up.

The first of the visitors that have entered our house are so small that they've been given the name "no-see-ums". They are small enough to get through screens, and when they bite you, it leaves a nice little red circle. Here is a picture of Wendy’s arm with many of their bites - they seem to like Wendy especially well. To combat these little guys, Wendy uses bug spray liberally, and we have sprayed our screens with something called Permethrin, a substance so toxic that it caused the tip of Eric's finger to go numb for over a month! But at least it does a good job of keeping away the no-see-ums (for the most part)!

The next smallest in our group of visitors is a group that likes to come in large numbers. These are the ants! They come in numerous different varieties, and if you want to see them, all you have to do is leave some food out on the counter overnight, and you'll have more ants than you can shake a stick at. Here is a video of some ants that decided to visit our kitchen.

Thankfully Dr Dave Thompson came to the rescue and scared them all away with a gallon of his bug spray (yes, the missionaries here buy it by the gallon!)

The next on our list of special visitors are spiders. We have not seen many of them lately - possibly because they have learned that if they are seen by Wendy, they will be either chased or squashed (or both)! We have been told that the flat, non-hairy spiders are good spiders (because they eat other bugs), but Wendy has not bought into that idea too much yet.

And we can't forget the cockroaches. Wow, are they big and fast here! About the only time we can catch them is if they are already dead or if they somehow get turned over on their backs, legs flailing everywhere. Here's a picture of a spider and a dead cockroach. (The picture just does not do the size of these guys justice!) I tried to convince Wendy that the spider killed the cockroach, and therefore should be left alone, but she was skeptical.

This brings us to one of the cuter visitors in our place - geckos. These guys come in all sizes (from really tiny to the size of a small cat! – but thankfully the bigger ones mainly stay outside). We have been told that these should be very welcome guests because they eat bugs. The same is true of spiders, but I guess the cuteness of the geckos (and their quickness) serves to protect them in this household.

Last, but not least, is a creature a little more well known to most Americans – it’s a cat named Gentil (which means “kind, nice” in French). She has been a fun addition to our place, and we are told she keeps down the rodent population, which is why rats/mice are not part of this list! She normally gets fed twice a day, but she is ready to eat at any moment, and she has found that if she meows persistently enough and pathetically enough, she can generally get Eric (the softy of us two) to give her a little snack. Gentil is the cat of another missionary who is currently on home assignment, and so we will be saying good-bye to her when her owner comes back in November. That will be a sad day for the Hofmans.

A few other visitors that we’ve had include a snake, a tiny scorpion, and a few quite large millipedes. Any human visitors that want to come join the party are more than welcome! If this blog makes you think twice about visiting, it’s actually not as bad as it sounds, and we promise to help make your room a private one (free from all other visitors). :)