While they’re on my mind, I want to mention the several indoor animals with whom we share the house. No doubt most of them have lived here longer than we have and will still be here long after we leave. First seen was Harriet, a little lizard on our wall. Welcome, Harriet. Please eat your fill of insects. Especially the anopheles mosquitoes that carry falciparum malaria. But don’t eat the immense spider, 3 ½ -4 inches across with a strangely flat body, that inhabits the night in our bathroom. She eats insects, as well. And she can move like electricity—a flash. And we are glad to see your cute little offspring, Harriet, in the other rooms. Isn’t it sweet? Everyone has their own room. The less desirables include the aforementioned vampires and the hefty cockroaches. We see a new roach every week or so, upside down on the floor. And in some sort of stupor. I think they sprayed roach powder around before we moved in and these critters are intoxicated. The roaches are much to big for either the lizards or spider to eat and the mosquitoes won’t give them malaria. Linda tells me they can live 3 years without food. Fleas can live 6 months without a meal, and still jump higher than I could ever have aspired to, even when a young man. These are our roommates. Not so bad, eh? No dirty socks or underpants cast about, no loud music, no noisy sex. And they require nothing from us—no greeting, no beer, no food. Just a little adjustment.
Guavas? We noticed a guava tree in the yard when we moved in. It is right in front of the living room windows and the outside covered porch. We could see little guavas growing on it. We were excited about our own fruit tree, especially since we don’t have a papaya or mango tree, as many yards do. The hitch? Each house has a guard—well, a day guard and a night guard and a third who picks up Sundays. So the 3 or 4 guards at a time gather around our guava tree and look up into the thick foliage for fruit. Mind you, it isn’t ripe at all—I’ve tried one. That doesn’t dissuade the guards and they climb in the tree and pick the green fruit. It is being stripped, no doubt, because they are hungry. It is difficult to be angry with them. We haven’t seen guavas in the market, so we likely won’t get to eat any here even though we have a healthy, producing tree. Sigh. Mango season approaches in a month and we are already having green mangos in salad. Papaya is good but mango is heavenly. For two months we can eat as many as we want, they are so widely plentiful and, thus, inexpensive. A large papaya costs 65 cents.
A couple of tidbits that were on my mind.
A psychiatrist in Malawi 