Roomates

When I return to Torit in early January, my residence is supposed to change from the administrative compound outside of town to the bishop's house in the middle of town. Before that happens, though, I thought I would share with you some of the roomates with whom I have been living these past three months. They are colorful and interesting, and particularly the crickets (first photo) can be pretty noisy. Some are larger (like the brown praying mantis-like bug in the third photo which measures almost 5 inches in length; when it flies it sounds like a small cessna), and some (like the innumerable ants and mosquitos who didn't make it into the photo gallery) are smaller. I've seen a praying mantis like the green one in the second photo pounce with amazing speed on an unsuspecting smaller bug and hold it in its forearms in a death grip while it chomped away. That happened on the rechargeable light beside my desk one night after the generator went off. When the lights go off, the insects come alive. There's a whole different kind of night life going on in my room outside my mosquito net. Good thing I wear earplugs!

I get occasional other visitors outside of the insect category, like the toads who somehow find their way in the room, and the small lizards who climb the walls and eat the insects. I wish I could have included photos of some of the other interesting insects that I've seen outside my room, like the bugs that look like bright red velvet buttons, or the beetles that roll a round cluster of something on the ground in pairs, or the very large snail that I found on a path one day. But that would be another story, since they're not my roomates.