Home and Garden Safari IV: Leaf Bug

I love the tropics. Even though we live in the city now, there are still interesting creatures that visit our home and garden. The other night I was rummaging in the pantry for something or other and came across this beautiful monster. It is a "True Leaf Katydid" according to our bug book. It has cousins who's legs aren't quite so beautifully coloured that are just called "Leaf Katydid." I'm tickled to have met a "true" one.

I never came across bugs that were quite so substantial until I came to Africa. I am quite proud of myself for wrangling this one into the kids' "bug barn" so I could show it to Simon in the morning. I used a broom and a plastic tub that feta cheese came in. Kobus scoffed and suggested that grabbing it in my hand would have been quite easy: "It's just a big grasshopper." He grew up here... Anyway, Simon was less impressed than I had hoped but the poor bug didn't look nearly as impressive as it pressed itself into a corner of the cage. It was easily as long as my palm and quite fat.

The plan was to keep it overnight and then release it into the garden and take some pictures. I did just that. The movement of the bug's antennae as it slowly made his way out of the box onto the shrubbery showed it was obviously pleased to be released. The book says that they eat leaves and I don't know how long it occupied my pantry but there really wasn't anything in there that might keep it properly fed. Thankfully it didn't disappear so quickly and I could get a couple shots off. I left it there and had a look in the general area again a few hours later. Of course there was no trace of it passing but a happy memory of such a beautiful creature.

Power Politics

Somewhere between Thursday night and Friday morning last week somebody cut and removed the power cables that connect our house to the municipal power supply in Dar es Salaam. That company's employees are apparently quite notorious for sabotaging their own system for the value of making individual users pay to have (probably the same) cables repaired/replaced.

We've been running on generator power since then. Kobus drags himself down the two flights of stairs to the behemoth when he's having his first smoke in the morning. He starts it up and it rumbles and vibrates through the entire building through the day and into the evening powering the offices downstairs and most of our flat on top at a cost of about C$60/day. Of course we're thankful for the light, computers , A/C and the tv but unfortunately (for reasons that might have to be the subject of another post) the stove is not on the circuit connected to the generator. So we've been camping in the kitchen for a week, using a gas cylinder with a burner screwed into it. One pot dinners get a little tired after a few days.

So today after interminable runaround with the police who need to be well paid for the necessary report to the power company, the later came up with two quotes handwritten on a couple pages torn from an exercise book. The first quote was for "official" service and the lesser quote was for "unofficial" service. There is little information available on the added value of the official service beyond paying twice the price as the work is done by the same people with the same equipment. I suppose there would be little in the way of reciepts for the cash handed over which would be a problem on company expenses.

Because the international company Kobus works for requires something a little more official looking, even in terms of quotations for service, the envoy was sent back to request same...which brings us to mid-afternoon friday and a better than average chance that we're in for another weekend of generator power.

I think that we'll have to take ourselves to the beach on Sunday.

On Angels' Wings

Getting a lift to an early morning training session with some guards at the mall, the company pickup is overtaken on a terribly potholed and rutted corner by a sedan which used the oncoming "lane"/path to accelerate forward then nose itself back into the line of traffic just before it caused a jam with an oncoming bus. Through the tinted windows I can catch glimpses of highly coiffed, dyed and straightened female hair on the driver. One of her numerous passengers is a youngish muzungu hanging on for dearl life. She careens into the oncoming late around all the next few corners as we follow her. My driver *tsks* at her alarming habit of straddling the center line even on the straight bits of road. He overtakes her just ahead of an uncontrolled roundabout where she could cause un-told chaos. The sticker in her back windown read: "On Angels' Wings." Indeed.