Insects That Bite

I remarked in my diary that I had not written anything for a few days. The previous Sunday I was down and out with severe headache, sore eye muscles, stiff bones, sore neck and lower legs. My head felt like the top would blow off at any time! Classic symptoms of malaria!
By Monday my headache had subsided a little, but I felt awful! Mags drove me to the doctor who looked like the film-star Omah Sherriff. and he sent me to his hospital where they sampled my blood and urine.
I was positive for malaria and typhoid as well, but the typhoid might have been a gut infection I picked up in Zanzibar. I was given Mefloquine and Cipofloxacin antibiotic that was to last a week.

We were supposed to take Paludrine daily and Chloroquine once a week to prevent malaria but I did not like taking those chemicals and actually biting insects do not like me much. Mags is just the opposite.

Sure I get bitten but not frequently, though the speckled grey mosquito that is around more during the day did bite me but I did not contract the dengue fever it carries. These bugger used to hang around the nursery!
We had mossie nets to sleep under and we knew the mosquitoes you hear buzzing are the male ones and the silent female ones are the carriers of malaria.
Still I did not take them lightly as it may seem but rather than preventative drugs, I copied the locals by treating the disease once I contracted it. For me personally this is good but I would not recommend any treatment to anybody else.As for the typhoid thing; we had inoculations before leaving for Africa, therefore we had the antibodies, so naturally these would always show up in the test.

The other thing people do not understand about mosquitoes and malaria. When a mosquito lands on you to suck your blood, once his tube (proboscis) is in you, first he clears it by blowing out the

the blood of the previous person/animal that it has been feeding on. This pumps just a little bit of the previous blood into your system with its pathogens!
Oh yes I carried on working, village visits, and felt crook and then lost another couple of days. Then the vomiting! My nursery workers told me that it was necessary to vomit up the bile from your stomach before the cure is complete.
Well the cure came but I did catch malaria again.

One day Mags woke with pain across her chest and blisters that looked like she had been burnt. Worried we took her off to the doctor and he smiled, showing her a scar running from his forehead to his chin. Nairobi fly, he said, when it walks on you it leaves a trail that causes burning and pain. The scar fades away in a few days.
Again I am lucky because they have walked over me but never left that trail. But they can do damage!

The doctor was able to give Mags a tube of cream that took most of the pain away, but think of those poor kids whose parents cannot afford pain relief. It is fortunate that Nairobi fly visits only when there is sufficient moisture.


We were given a goat by one of the villages out of appreciation of what we had accomplished there but the goat carried Funza, jiggers, chiggers or sand fleas!

These insects live in dry, dusty ground and the first one I noticed was on my big toe. It became itchy, red and swollen. There were two black dots - I now know one is a breathing hole and the other is an anus! I squeezed the white stuff out! We had visitor and all found Funza! Over a short period of time, I extracted 40 from mainly my feet. The locals laughed because they thought us wazungu were too clean to catch them! But it is nothing to do with hygiene!

I used to water the nursery in the evening in my bare feet. The Funza would jump onto my legs or feet and latch on. A small brown speck. I could not wash them off with the hose, so I sat on the bath (where there was best light) and squeeze them with a crunch! The only way to kill them.
They bury themselves into your flesh and form a grub with its two black dots. Your body reacts.
You suffocate the grub with a drop of kerosene and dig the grub out with a needle. If you squeeze just the body might come out leaving the skin behind. Mags did this and she was infected. I gave her a foot bath of potassium permanganate which cured her but made her feet brown for a week or two.
These insects are very dangerous and cause malformation in the feet of kids as well as adults. There are projects in Nairobi that I know of where they seek finance to help suffering kids. There is a website. It is a big problem and I would be pleased if anyone could help them - just Google Funza or Sand Flea.


While it is not an insect, shilingi or ringworm is is a problem and is very contagious. Of course it is a fungal disease and can appear anywhere on your body but very often kids in Tanzania catch it on their head. Commonly it is controlled by cutting the hair and rubbing in shoe polish. Any anti-fungal ointment works though.
I worked in close proximity to kids and never caught ringworm, though it is not very usual in adults. But it is no doubt embarrassing for kids and the culture where being close together in the norm, the disease is easily spread.

I have already written about Siafu or Safari Ants, but I would like to share some additional things.
When I say that I respect them, the meaning could be that I fear them, but I don't - I think they are well organized and brilliant insects and I have a high regard for them.
I was speaking at a seminar at Kolila and felt the ant making its way up my leg, of course I did not flinch, but it managed to get into the tenderer part of my anatomy and there, it decided to take a bite! The tears came to my eyes and I hurried to the privacy of the toilet, which was some eighty metres away! There I squeezed the life out of the insect and gained immediate relief. My audience was aware what had happened and on my return showed they wore polite smiles.

When the column of siafu came into our house, the local reaction was to sweep them away and put kerosene in their path. That interrupted them and because I knew what their diet was [meat] I let them pass through because they were on a journey as the name safari ant alludes to.

A bit about the Tree Nursery

I was very happy with the tree nursery set up. At our house so there was no cost travelling to go to it and it was good that I could go out there at any time and do some work.
I noticed that Loti preferred not to do the physical work in the nursery and that is the way it is - while I was content to work with the nursery workers, culturally that's not the way it happened in Tanzania. There was plenty of other work for him to do.

Mbise was our night guard, there at the behest of DME and he worked in the nursery during the day as well. He carefully told me that I should not trust the workers and they should not be allowed inside - even to use the toilet.
I had intended to allow him to sleep in the nursery shed which actually was a room attached to the house but with entrance only from outside. He refused because he did not think it quite appropriate and possibly he was right.

The other two young women were local and of the Meru tribe. Another called at the gate 'from up the mountain' and she spoke some English. She had been trained as an electrician during national service and was of the Chugga tribe, so she was very confident. I decided to employ her.
Mbise took me aside to say that she was married to a man whose father was a thief (well he must be because he owns a bus and a Landrover). All his sons a thieves too and her husband too, they worked as a gang and had a rifle.
That was hardly the news I wanted to hear, but I generally trust my instincts but decided to keep an eye out and my ears open.
She proved to be a good worker and a good team member. However, she later developed a sadness about her and told me that she was having troubles with her husband.
A small sheet of polythene went missing and when I asked where it had gone, nobody knew, but Mbise told them that he was the guard and the loss reflected on him, so he asked the culprit to talk to me.
She tearfully came to me and told me that her husband had kicked her out of the house and she took the polythene for shelter. I told she should bring the polythene back next morning and we would talk to the group. I told her that the punishment would be to stand down from work for 2 days.

The next morning she arrived with the polythene and all knew what had happened. I deliberately did not go out until the group had a chance to talk among themselves. I went out and told them all I knew of the problems this young woman faced. I told them that if they had problems come to me and we will see what can be done. I thanked her for bringing the polythene back, but told her that she needed it more that I did. And I gave it back to her. She still had to stand down for two days.

Her personal situation did not improve and she went to relatives in Dar es Salaam, where I had no doubt she would find work.

This left room for Mama Riziki who I had employed from time to time to collect small Grevillea robusta seedlings. She was a solo mother and a good, reliable worker. Much later cupid did his work and Mbise fell for Mama Riziki - but that's later and a delight.

Mbise became very close to us as time went on. He and I would often sit in the evening and talk - me telling him all sorts of stories about life in NZ and things of nature; he would tell me of his life and Meru culture. We had fun and we shared sadness. I will write about more at another time

We became close to Loti as well, sharing some incredible adventures, and there will be more on that as well.
But this early on I brought back from Mateves (Stephen) some papaya of the huge kind that we were to grow - so all the workers had fruit to eat and return with the cleaned seeds. From the same trip I brought back fifteen Guinea Fowl (Kanga) eggs and Loti took them all so a hen he had could sit on them. They all hatched and we ate omelet from time to time.

Mareu Village

The General Secretary wanted us to carry out an environmental programme at Mareu. I think his encouragement was because he had a farm there and wanted to plant some trees.
Mareu is West of King'ori and the main part of the village seems to be a micro-climate influenced by the nearby forest. Where the actual village and church are situated, the climate favors tree growing but there is a sub-parish down by the King'ori road which is drier.
The General Secretary's farm is on a drier ridge West of the sub-parish, but that ridge leads right up to The main part of Mareu. [well I understand all that!]

After all, the General Secretary was my boss, so he recieved his trees. I did not demand that the holes be prepared first, as I do all others, so his trees were not planted well and many did not survive. This is a typical outcome - a lot of trees arrive at once and there is failure to plant them on time and properly. Then the dry weather starts and the trees have not established well enough to survive. Invariably it is better to supply small lots and do it properly!
So he received a second lot with much the same outcome, but I did put him under pressure a little and he employed a planter.
He received a mix of fruit, indigenous and exotic timber trees - the value of which could be more appreciated in some of the other areas.


We carried out a seminar in the small church at the sub-parish. The church was simply built and there were rocks for seats. This is the way churches start and when the community comes together the building begins for the new church.
We took our nursery workers with us to participate in a role play and for the village people to hear from them what we were doing in the nursery.
The Bishop's driver, Samweli lived nearby and his wife was the leader of the women's group there.

The village plantings were very successful and Samweli & his wife wanted extra plants. Theirs grew well and they were genuinely interested, making the programme a success. Which goes to show what can be done under the right circumstances.

While the environmental problems at Mareu village were not in any way as severe as say, Kisimiri, and there were lots of trees already established there, it was still useful to carry out a programme there. Why? Well look at the Amazon and how much indigenous forest is lost per day. Look also at Borneo and the replacement of indigenous rain forest for palm oil crops.
Through education, some difference might occur.
The village people proved to be enthusiastic and took note of what the seminar taught, then wanted to plant trees.
There was vacant land that was owned by the church and it was decided to plant trees there as an investment for the church. This proved successful and it copied to some extent the nearby state forest.
We divided the participants into groups of 10 households and after checking that the planting hole were prepared correctly, we supplied the trees. Fodder, fruit, fuelwood and timber species. The deliveries took several days and it is a pleasant experience to be accepted into those rural households.

Later the village chairman turned up at our nursery with a Landrover, requesting more trees for his village. He probably made some money out his trip, but that is no problem as the object of the exercise is to establish trees in the rural areas.

The Chekechea [nursery school] that was started in the church while we were there had no resources and from time to time our friends would send small amounts of money to us. Sometimes meant to help us out personally, or to use in any way that we thought appropriate. All money sent to us was used to help people or organizations. In fact all official project money was used within the project and did not go towards helping people in a personal way. But the donations and some of our personal resources could be put to helping in a personal way eg. paying school fees. But sending money to us was expensive as we had not found Western Union, instead a bank draft was sent and a good chunk was lost in fees as the transaction passed through LA [something like USD40] then once in the Tanzania bank, the funds were not released for three months! In fact our local bank in New Zealand did not know that money was deducted at LA nor that it was held onto by the Tanzania bank!
From some small donations (Potts) we bought writing slates and chalk and some teacher resource material. The items were well used.