Let’s talk about bugs.  I made the claim awhile ago that the jungle here isn’t too heinously buggy.  That is true.  But it also doesn’t mean that I remain un-feasted-upon.  Before arriving, my least favorite were tsetse flies.  Hands down.  The bite hurts, yes, but mine also tend to swell to the size of small countries (in fact, I had a lovely one the other day that got so big I could actually feel warmth radiating off it and it began to bruise around the edges as capillaries in my skin burst, unable to handle the swelling).  And, God, does it ITCH.  There aren’t a ton in Gombe, but one has taken up residence in my house and we are waging a vicious battle on a daily basis (stunned the little wench today with a firm leg slap, but she wobbled off before I could finish her).  Today, however, I met the sungusungu ant.  I’d seen them before.  I understood they were mbaya (bad).  And then one (thank God ONLY one), bit my finger today.  Holy Bajeezus.  Ow.  After 5 minutes or so, though, it didn’t hurt too much.  So, later, while staring at a male baboon taking a snooze, wanting to do the same, I started playing the game of “would you rather”.  Would I rather be bitten by 5 tsetse flies or 5 sungusungu.  If sungusungu bites really are over after 5 or 10 minutes, I think I’d go with sungusungu.  Of course, soon I felt that Issa, looking equally bored watching monkeys napping and jacking off (not at the same time), would want to play along.  I did my best to explain the premise in Swahili and then said, “5 siafu (the unpleasant little army ants) or 5 sungusungu.”  Issa went with siafu.  Sungusungu inject formic acid (at least that was my interpretation of his Swahili explanation…I may have taken some liberties) while siafu just tear at your flesh.  “Okay, 5 sungusungu or 5 nyuki?”  Nyuki are these heinous local wasps that attack en masse and have been known to kill people.  When I was a kid I had all sorts of weird beliefs about insects, like, “spiders can eat through anything, including your shoes” (yes, I know spiders aren’t insects), or “if you kill a bee then the others will hunt you down and sting you until you DIE”.  Well, nyuki will actually do the latter.  And you don’t even have to kill one.  Issa went with the sungusungu.  “5 nyuki or 5 leopards?”  Issa laughed and then stopped playing.

In addition, to the biters there are also the screamers (cicadas), the hovercrafts (dung beetles), and the fuglies (this weird punching bug that camped on my stoop and did an impression of a 1920’s boxer everytime I went near it…no idea what it was but it looked lonely).  There are also a gazillion flies, millipedes by the dozens, and crazy-bad-ass spiders (I saw this one wrassling a dung beetle it had managed to wrap in it’s web…the beetle was completely white, but I could see it pulsing it’s wings outward and everytime it did the spider wrapped it up again, faster and faster…I never saw who won).  And, at night, there is a slew of moths and other flying creatures that batter my window screens and get eaten by the army of geckos that patrol their perimeter (I have accidentally smashed two of these geckos in my door and within a few hours their bones were picked clean by tiny simizi ants…these ants don’t bite people so I like them a great deal…when they aren’t in my food). 

All in all, my tolerance for creepy crawlies has reached new heights, as has my ability to take them out.