Krista vs. the Spider

In honour of yesterday’s post, I’ve decided to post the following excerpt from one of my earlier Malawi newsletters (June 2002). It is the story of the demise of a rather large spider. I’ll put in a couple shots of some local creepy crawlies that I’ve seen along the way. I am pleased to report that overnight we enjoyed some substantial rain showers. Given the old belief that to kill a spider brings rain, I’m posting the death of the spider story in the hopes of encouraging it to rain some more.

There I was minding my own business, digging through one of my storage boxes for a bar of soap or some such thing when my eye caught something out of the ordinary. It was the second largest spider that I have ever seen without the benefit of a barrier of some kind to protect us from each other. I was thankful that I saw it before I put my hand on it – yikes! It was doing its utmost to make itself very small in order not to be seen amongst some first aid supplies. Given its bulk, it wasn’t doing a very good job and even all curled up on itself, it was the size of a small mouse. Yes, it was furry too.

“I’m sorry,” I addressed the spider, “but this will not do. You’re going to have to go.” I give this explanation to all the creatures that I will not tolerate in my living space. This includes any spider bigger than the local daddy long legs and all the winged creatures with a sting – mosquitoes, bees, wasps… I do tolerate the crickets, frogs, gekos, (most) ants and all the weird little things that throw themselves at my kerosene lamps throughout the evening when they’re lit. Anyway, I fetched the can of evil smelling DOOM (that is the high-powered local version of RAID to all you North Americans) and gassed the poor creature with several blasts. DOOM gives me a headache and causes almost instant death to smaller insects but anything larger than a housefly is usually only initially stunned by the gas and then tends to thrash around for a while before giving up and keeling over as the poison affects their nervous system. Often enough, I will “finish off” an intruder with a swat from a handy shoe or newspaper after the stunning blast in order to conserve the gas, my health and to put the creature out of its misery.

As I said, this spider was rather large and the blast of DOOM caused it to briefly curl up even tighter as if it was trying to avoid the spray but then I watched as it suddenly stretched to its fullest (very alarming) diameter and back to the original crouch and then started thrashing around the stuff in my box. I was a little worried that I hadn’t thought through how I was going to get the spider out of the box and what I was going to do if it decided to try to hide itself away…I had subjected other smaller spiders to DOOM-ing that had lived for a day or more afterwards. I couldn’t monitor the box all day but what if it decided to go and die elsewhere in the house? I was not going to be able to be comfortable with this thing roaming freely and liable to turn up anywhere. The beast very graciously climbed into an open box of sticky bandages (plasters for all you Brit-trained English speakers) and solved my problem with how to wrangle it out of my house. As it thrashed inside the box it made the most alarming amount of noise for a spider in a box but I plucked up my courage enough to close the lid of the box and carry it outside to dump out the spider and the rest of the contents into my garden. The fall stunned the creature again and as it was lying on its back recovering, I collected the bandages that had fallen around it. I watched as it righted itself, staggered a little and then resolutely made its way back towards my house. That was when I decided that the game was up and smacked it with a slipper. One leg was left behind when I swept the remains back into the garden so I did a post mortem collection of data. The four distinct sections of the leg added up to a whopping length of 3.4cm and at its widest it was 3mm across with a clearly defined muscle where it was attached to the body of the beast. As earlier stated, any interested bug researchers are more than welcome!

Tanzanian Tales IV: Water is Life

There is a steady rain falling outside. It is early morning and therefore an unusual time for the rain to fall. Generally, we get rain in the evening and at night here. The downpour interrupts both our television satellite service and our microwave connections to email and internet. I walk through the house making note of places where the ceiling leaks and carefully watch where I put my feet. Both dangerous and benign (but still large) creatures tend to seek higher ground as their own homes are flooded outside. But I am by no means complaining. In fact, the sound of rain drumming on the roof and even dripping through onto the ceiling and floors inside gives my heart peace and raises my spirit with hope. I say let the rain fall and keep falling.

We are stationed in the heart of a region that has experienced severe drought this year. Here at Mwadui, the rain that has fallen since the wet season that was due to start in November is not even the amount that they usually expect to fall over a week. This is not a disaster that strikes quickly but it is as cataclysmic as a flood. We are witnessing the daily deterioration of the people and their economy knowing all the while that the mine’s continued operations and therefore our posting also rely on significant amounts of water being available to the process of separating diamonds from tonnes of dirt.

It began late in the dry season. More and more cattle, sheep and goat herders were allowing their charges to stray into the mine area to graze on the (more) abundant fodder available here. The mine is probably one of the only diamond mines in the world whose area is not protected by a perimeter fence. However, the demarcation of mine property vs. outside is clearly distinguished by the presence of trees on the inside and almost none but small scrub, the odd mango tree and the mighty baobab (unsuitable for fuel wood) on the outside. If anyone needs convincing of the importance of trees to the ecosystem and especially their cooling and moisture retaining qualities, I would strongly encourage them to visit places in Africa where trees are protected and compare these to their neighbouring areas that have been stripped of trees.



As time has progressed, the demarcation between mine area and the outside has become hotter, dustier and more barren looking by the day. Fields that were prepared for planting when the first rains began sit idle, their earth mounds turning to dust. A steady stream of enterprising cyclists can been seen riding between Mwadui’s Songwa Dam and Maganzu township about 10km from the mine. These men have strapped as many as four 20litre containers to their bikes which they fill with dam water to sell to the residents of the township. All the closer sources of water have dried up. The aforementioned herders have come from ever farther away to bring their animals to food and water. At least five cows have died on the mine property, too exhausted from their dry walk to take advantage of the nourishment available. Sadly, their erstwhile companions in the herd are used to drag the carcasses out of the mine area.



Another sign of slowly advancing disaster is the water level in the mine’s dams. This is a particularly dry part of Tanzania. We have been in the habit of visiting three of the dams that were constructed in the mine area to supply the town of Mwadui in addition to the water requirements for the mining process. During Williamson’s time, Songwa Dam (dam in this instance means man-made lake or reservoir) was turned into a recreation area with the addition of a sailing club complete with club house, boats, imported water fowl and fish. In each location, one can walk out into the basin of the dam quite some distance. Dam walls that should be barely containing the deluge of water are exposed and dry. The dam overflows and natural wash aways or seasonal rivers that would normally be running with water at this time are dry with well trodden footpaths running through them towards the puddles that remain inside the dams themselves. The flocks of migratory birds that come to enjoy the usual seasonal abundance of water are here. We’ve seen flocks of spoonbills, open billed storks, ducks and geese of several varieties and, ironically, so-called “rain birds” a type of stork that comes with the rainy season. Unfortunately, their picturesque presence standing in the centre of the Alamasi Dam is a sign of the times – the water barely comes up to their knees. Their numbers put the water purification systems to the test as they can be seen to contaminate the little supplies we have left.

In the wider picture, the newspapers and television news are full of ominous stories. Power cuts will soon be more prolonged and frequent due to the reduced capacity of the hydro turbines that power the national grid. Without power and water the rest of the struggling industry in this poor country will be under more strain. Animals in the national parks are dying due to lack of water, putting tourist dollars at risk. Even the route of the great migration of wildebeest and zebra has been affected. The herds are off course, gathering and staying at water points that are not usually on their itinerary and competing with human communities for water supplies. Animals are going longer between these oases and the less hardy are suffering and dying. To some this is a tragedy, to others it is a part of a natural cycle. If blame is to be apportioned, deforestation often appears at the top of the list, followed by global warming and the continued effects of the ElNino/ElNina weather pattern.

It is not only Tanzania that is suffering this drought. It appears to be a regional phenomenon, affecting the micro and macro economics of countries and the entire region. It is two weeks since I began writing this missive. We have had no rain since the glorious shower that inspired me to begin writing in the first place. Almost daily, the wind rises, clouds gather and thunder rumbles promisingly but nothing falls. The people here, like their fellow subsistence farmers in Malawi and in Uganda seem to prefer not to discuss the rain, or when it might come. They are stoic, literally going the extra distance to water livestock and fulfill their meager household needs until it falls and then they rejoice in the relief it brings.

Tanzanian Tales III: Happy Holidays

Those who have been reading my African dispatches for the past few years are probably getting tired of me starting off my Christmas letter by complaining that it is challenge to generate Christmas spirit in the absence of winter as we experience it in the Northern hemisphere. Not being a skier and disliking ice skating (*gasp* no, say it ain’t so!) as I do, Christmas time is really the only time that I actually find myself missing snow and ice as the seasonal markers of the magical time of year that is Christmas for me. I miss the clean, cozy quiet of the world after a big snowfall and the clear, cold blue of the sky when the sun comes out and makes the snow sparkle. I even miss the blast of cold that forces its way into the interior of the house as people arrive stamping the snow off heavy boots and finding places to hang coats, hats, scarves and gloves. Somehow all these things represent and inspire in me the warmth and good cheer of Christmas.

This is now the fourth Christmas that I have celebrated in Africa and the third African country where I have been living when the blessed day came and went. Each year as I have struggled to find my Christmas spirit in the absence of familiar surroundings and loved ones, I have also found ways to bring some of my comfortable traditions to each place and share new experiences with the family that we have made and the wonderful friends that we have found.

This year, we started the celebrations a week early with a Christmas hamper gift ceremony at one of the Mwadui churches. One of the muzungu (white, foreign) ladies of the mine attends a church close by her house throughout the year with her husband. It is a typically lively African congregation that uses a bare-bones hall as their church building, filling the space with song and praise several days a week in order to support its members in a Christian way of life. In an effort to give back to a spiritual community that had been so welcoming, Margaret decided that she wanted to do a Christmas hamper project. Early in November, the Church elders were tasked to make a list of needy families. They outdid themselves by inviting elderly and infirm Mwadui residents that are not necessarily regular members of their church to the Saturday morning ceremony to distribute the hampers. Meanwhile, some of the other ladies of the mine got involved and made a collection of money, excess items like bug spray, toilet paper and soap as well as used clothes. The cash was spent on washing basins which served as the containers for the beans, rice, bread flour, maize flour, tea, sugar, washing powder, sweets, kapenta (dried fish), cooking oil and salt which were also on the list. Margaret reported that the shopping was a memorable experience as the money collected for such a good cause seemed to be multiplying in her pocket like the proverbial loaves and fishes. Not only did they buy plenty of each of the items on the list but the cash stretched to afford kanga fabrics for each recipient as well as more sweets and still there was some small change left over. Of course this went in the collection basket at the Church. We all got together on the Wednesday before the ceremony to divide the items into the basins which were then wrapped in the gaily coloured fabrics. Surprisingly, this is the first time in living memory that such a thing has been done in Mwadui. Plans are underway to make sure that it is not the last.



After such a feel-good start to my Christmas week, I couldn’t help but get in the mood. As Simon and I did our morning walks I found myself looking at Mwadui with new eyes. The last of the blossoms on the flame trees and the ever blooming bougainvillea were suddenly happy reminders of the twinkling lights of the season in Canada. I busied myself with baking and crafting and managed to take on hosting the weekly mine ladies’ tea in my house for the first time since we arrived on the mine. Presents arrived for Simon from all over and our snail-mail and e-mail inboxes filled with greetings as friends from near and far took the time to say hello. I spent the day on Christmas Eve baking Christmas goodies and preparing for a quiet evening braai/BBQ with another couple at our house. It felt good to fill my home with some of the fragrances that I associate with Christmas. While we didn’t get a tree to decorate, Kobus allowed the new decorations we were given to be hung from a dried seed arrangement that he put together a couple months ago.



At six months, Simon is still a little too young to grasp that it was a different day from any other but he did enjoy tearing at the paper on his gifts on Christmas morning. He also enjoyed the attention from both of us as for once we presented him with paper that we encouraged him to rip up.



Most of the muzungu on the mine left for the holidays but given that the mine production never ceases, some of the senior management of each of the mining companies has to remain behind. Most of these gathered for a Christmas feast. We had pork roasted on a spit along with dishes from each family’s Christmas traditions by the pool in the afternoon. By then, I was back to loving the climate and no longer missing the snow. Simon outdid himself, getting in the pool quite happily and even trying to swim after some of the toys that were floating in the water.

As I get back to finishing this off, it is New Years Day. We had the party here last night so that Simon could sleep in his bed as we celebrated the passing of 2005. We were all outside in the garden enjoying snacks cooked over a fire as the moment arrived. We were comparing the time on watches and cellphones trying to decide if midnight had been and gone already or not. Then the mine’s midnight siren which signals the end of the night shift’s lunch break let us know that Mwadui had officially worked its way into 2006.

So here we are. I hope that everyone has had a happy holiday season and wishing all a very healthy and prosperous 2006. You can expect regular reports on life in Tanzania as the year progresses and I’m hoping to post some of my Malawi newsletters very shortly.

All the best,
Krista