Running an Insect Motel

Moving into a brand new house in Liberia, I felt pretty darn lucky to be a volunteer in Pleebo.  Little did I know what to expect in a newly built house. 

Our first week in Pleebo, I noticed this small pile of dirt on the wall near our bathroom door.  I brushed it off one night, only to find it returned the next morning.  I brushed it off again, this time looking closely at it, and found plenty of “white ants,” or termites, coming out of the wall.  Lovely.  Thankfully, Sarah and I had bought a can of insect killer; I sprayed the hole with the bug spray, and we were good to go. 

Week two, and Sarah and I continued to find small spots on our walls here and there.  No big deal…we’d just knock them down, sweep up the dirt, and spray the spot with the insect killer.  One day, however, Jacob, our carpenter, came over to hang up some laundry lines in our guest room (a room we do not frequent very often), and Sarah found the mother-load of all termite spots.  Here, on the wall, was a spot eight inches tall and about two feet wide dug out of the wall by the termites.  (They were in the mud used to make the bricks for our house, I guess.  Our house is made of mud bricks, covered over with cement and then painted.  Any spot not completely covered with cement or paint is fair game for them to appear.)  They were just making their home on our guest room wall.  I guess they thought they were our guests.  Think again, little guys!

Jacob knocked it down for us, thankfully, and we are now sure to make daily checks around our house, looking for any spots they might try to invade.  It’s really not a big deal, but it’s something to get used to.  We have to live here for two years, and if they’re trying to make it their home as well, things will get sketchy! 

Besides termites, we have our share of wildlife in our house.  Almost every day, we find a cockroach dead on its back somewhere in the house.  We have killed many live ones, as well, but it’s more fun to let them flip themselves over, I think :)  Spiders are very common here, and just the other day, I killed a four-inch one in our bathroom.  Look at that, mom!  Mosquitoes are part of life here, too, and I’m just grateful for our mosquito nets to sleep under at night. 

The creepiest insect, though, in my opinion, is the centipede I almost stepped on one night, as I was making my way to the bathroom.  I don’t know why, but I had my light with me (the current was on at this point), and I flashed it on the ground.  There, crawling was a six-inch long centipede making its way into the bathroom.  I did a little shudder, and then picked up the closest thing to me (a bucket), got it into the bucket, ran to the door, and threw it outside.

Just another day in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer in southeastern Liberia :)