Not Another Plague November!

See the little guy at the top? 

Lately, I've been identifying quite a lot with the children of Israel in Egypt.  It seems that one plague after another has made its home at our house.  November is part of our rainy spring season, and with the rain each year comes the wood borer termites.  Now in our province KwaZulu Natal, you'll hear these referred to as bora.  And on the ridge where I live just a few miles from the ocean, it is ripe territory for these little flying nuisances to wreak havoc of your house.  As I write, these centimeter long insects are flying to the one light that I have on in the house by my computer and dive bombing me.  As soon as they settle down, they drop their four wings and proceed to find the softest, unfinished wood they can locate and settle in with their mate.  Then they bore their way through the wood until one day the whole furniture collapses.  The good news is that they are slow eaters and their reproduction cycles are slow.  The bad news is that our flat has these guys colonized in the windows, doors, cupboards, etc. for about 10-15 years.

Look at the damage these guys can do

Eating from the inside out

look closely!

Problem is, their favorite hangout seems to be the windows above my bed.  Each night, I close up the windows, turn off as many lights as I can and hope for the best.  But, alas, my bed is covered with a beautiful dusting of bora wings and little squiggling worms. I find it particularly curious that God is testing me with these critters.  It's not like I didn't already have enough issues with the imaginary bugs crawling on me in my sleep, but now there are literally bugs in my bed and I find it very difficult to separate fact from fiction in my fear-induced dreams. 

tremendous teamwork!

As if that wasn't enough, I have a live food chain in my bedroom.  The bora try to crawl and get to the wood frame under my mattress.  On the way, they get intercepted by these ants.  I have yet to figure out if the ants are killing them or if they're already dead, but nonetheless, they carry off these wiggly (or now not so wiggly) critters.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend!  After an evening swarm, I usually spend about an hour vacuuming and cleaning up and finally get to bed.  Then what do I hear?  Swish, swish, pitter patter - the geckos have arrived.  One night I saw about 100 bora swarming on my window sill and when I came back 15 minutes later, they were all neatly cleaned up and only a couple of happy geckos with full bellies remained.

What would be your reaction to this advisement??

I felt a bit like Pharoah being warned by Moses when I saw this notice at W's school.  I was actually very happy to see that my kids were going to be exposed to this so we could get it done while they were young.  Little did I know that I'd be in chickenpox jail for the next month.  W for the first 2 weeks and A for the last 2 weeks.  Of course, it coincided with the busiest time of the school year.  W and A missed their year end concerts and barely made it well in time to be in the Sunday School play.  A had a much more severe case in the end because of her continual exposure to W.  Thankfully they did not itch much.  Except for a couple of days, W enjoyed the time off school and extra fun at home with mom.  A - not so much.

 If that wasn't enough, poor A brought home lice in her hair from school again!  Thanks be to God that we discovered it the day before the 50 pox sores erupted on her head.  So we were off to our full day at Mom's spa.  First she began with a luxurious overnight mayonnaise hair conditioning treatment.  This  cruelty free application mercifully suffocates any lice and nits that are older than 4 days.  Next came the invigorating listerine 3 hour soak. This provided a tingly scalp experience to eliminate any remaining unwanted friends.  This was followed by the vinegar rinse, tea tree wash and conditioner.  Now she was ready for the 2 hour combing session with full color video entertainment!! Wish I could have said the same for me.  :-(

Need I mention the flies that have come to eat all of my food and the mosquitos that bite my face each night as I try to hide under my covers?  I can only hope that like in Egypt long ago, this means that my deliverer is coming soon!!  Cameron told me this morning that he saw his first tree frog in the house last night.  Now I'm really feeling nervous!!!  I think I'll deem this month to be DEFINITELY NOT DECEMBER!!