Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Summer, with various bugs

It's summer here in south India. And yes, it is hot! Temps are hovering around 100 most days, and lows are only in the high 70s at night.

A few nights ago we had a huge thunderstorm. That was pretty cool (except that the thunder kept me from sleeping. In part it was just the noise, and in part I was worried that the kids would wake up scared, even though they've never done so in a storm before. But this one was really loud! Eventually I got up to check on on them. They were both sound asleep, sprawled across their beds. In the morning they expressed surprise upon learning there had been a storm at all), but we've had bit of rain each of the next two days, and now there is standing water all over campus. In addition to my general hatred of mosquitoes, I now have the additional concern of diseases they carry. So I'm really, really hoping that things dry out again soon.

And then tonight Robert came home from some interviews he'd been doing in the city and announced that the termites were swarming outside. Which was, in fact, somewhat obvious at that point as the 10 seconds the front door was open allowed about a dozen flying termites into the apartment. This is my first encounter with flying termites; I'm hoping they don't swarm for long!

Finally, there are the ants, who for some unknown reason are swarming the kitchen with extra vigor, and paying particular attention to the faucet on the sink. I gotta admit, that's a new one for me. Luckily the resident geckos are also paying extra attention to the kitchen, or at least hanging out there more, so I hope to see a decrease in the ant population soon. We see one tiny gecko pretty often. He had an accident to his tail, making him easy to identify, and leading the kids to name him "Stumpy". The adult gecko they spotted in the hall tonight (no doubt gorging on termites) has been christened "Fatty". 

1 comment:

Jo said...

Wow, it is hot there!~ Do you have any kind of cooling devices?
I love "fatty" and "stumpy"!