22 April (Wed)

I am working in the kitchen this morning because I arrived in the office this morning to find ants swarming all over Brad’s desk and his computer. I was happy to leave them there (after all it wasn’t my computer) but Pricka, the World’s Most Fabulous and Efficient Camp Hand, rushed in and sprayed a can of Doom on them. Needless to say this fruck me out and I won’t be able to go in there for at least a week. Good thing we are planning a trip to Maun tomorrow. I am not a believer in Doom and he got The Lecture about what it does to ones brain cells, let alone the environment. He probably won’t do it again.

We had ants in our bed last night as well. More specifically, Keita had ants in her bed and I inadvertently transferred her, and the ants, to our bed. Also, our zip packed in so we had it fastened with clothes pegs, which wasn’t quite enough to keep the hordes of mozzies out. I am at a loss at to what to do about the ant thing. Clearly my and Pricka’s frantic patching had no effect. I suspect as things get drier it will only get worse. It is hideous getting crawled on and having everything else, including ones children, crawled on, but don’t want to Doom them. It is ideologically and environmentally unsound, not to mention unhealthy. I am informed by Brad-Who-Knows-Everything that we wont be able to put in a new floor as the walls of the tent are too thin and will tear. It is also prohibitively expensive and for that amount of money we may as well just get a whole new tent built.

Rio continues to be fixated on death. We have a massive fly infestation and everyone takes turns with the fly swatter. Rio usually loves this task and it can keep him occupied for hours. Today he was collecting the victims in his bug box, and after having had a look at the carcasses he got all tearful and said “mommy why do we have to kill flies? Lets not kill anymore”. It was too sweet. The vegetarian in me relates to this and I remember feeling exactly the same when I was a child (and still do). I have vivid recollections of feeling so desperately sorry for little things that others killed with such indifference. I always felt (and still do) that they are little beings doing the best they can, and that they are trying to live their lives and get through each day like all of us are. I manage to conveniently get over this when it comes to flies and mozzies though.   

Work like a Trojan in the morning and then head to Maun in the afternoon.

We are beginning to get to know the Parks People at the gate. As we drove through I said to the man, in my token Setswana “cheers Ra, see you Saturday”. Keita, trying to be very polite, added “cheers, Rassie”.