A bug's life

Good morning!

Happy Easter Monday! Easter is the time when we celebrate new life and I hope this weekend also marks a new phase for my project. Not only will we be starting the group discussions/workshops with teenage girls next week, I also hope that my fourth week in Chimanimani will bring me a bit more peace of mind.

I am writing this blog in Harare, which according to Google, is one of the worst African cities to live in. Harare is, quite frankly, still the shithole it was two years ago (litter everywhere, nothing to do, expensive…), but I’m not entirely sure if it really is as bad as it is portrayed on the internet. The only other African city I have ever been to is Cape Town: a place millions of people love and adore, but where I just felt unsafe all the time. Harare may be boring as hell, but you don’t have to worry about carjackings, armed robberies, kidnappings or other shenanigans. That said though, the city is a great example of a place that has seen better days: roads haven’t been fixed since before Independence (1980s), pedestrian crossings haven’t been painted in decades and there is virtually nothing to do.

At first, I was looking forward to coming to Harare. The only reason I’m here is because of an issue with my work permit which couldn’t be solved online or in Mutare. While I wasn’t happy about the additional costs of this trip, I did long for human company and was hoping to find that in the big city. My first days here couldn’t be further from that fantasy: all my friends here were suddenly too busy to meet up and everything is closed because of the holidays. My hotel was truly awful: mould on the walls, a musty smell, brown water (if there was any water at all) and a pool that had turned into a pond. On top of that, I was (unsurprisingly) the only guest there. It was the last place where you want to stay to recover from weeks of isolation and I literally thought I was going mental as I was walking around town, desperately looking for things to do but getting completely stuck in my own thoughts. It felt like I was reliving the days when I had to do maths homework: feeling stuck and struggling to find an answer to the problem I was trying to solve (how not to feel totally lonely here). The thought of having to spend another two days in that dirty hotel room all by myself just drove me insane, and thanks to my dad, I was able to relocate to a much nicer hotel. (Shout out to you, pap!!) My friends might still be too busy and all the shops remain closed, but I just feel way less lonely in a big hotel with lots of people around me. I feel like I can easily stick it out here till Tuesday.

I started to write this post on a towel on the grass of the Botanic Gardens, where I had to leave after a while because I was soon attacked my ants. This leads me to a rather interesting topic: the life of bugs in Africa. I don’t know what it is about Africa, but it really is a paradise for bugs (and other creatures I detest – will come to that later). The first time I was introduced to the resourcefulness of African bugs was during my first trip here in 2022, when I discovered an ants’ nest by and IN my bed the minute I was ready to fall asleep. The ants they are back now, and they are literally EVERYWHERE. Putting your bag down is essentially an invitation for a bug infestation. They bite and sting and before you know it your clothes are covered in ants. You want to be careful to shake all of them of before you go home, because if you don’t, your room will be an ants’ nest the following day.

Ants are annoying, but I can handle them – something which cannot be said about spiders. Ever since I was a little girl, I have been scared of spiders. I wouldn’t say I really have arachnophobia, as I always end up being the brave one who gets rid of the massive house spiders we have in Ireland, but I really detest them and imagine the world to be a much brighter place without the little critters. I know people are now going to lecture me about the usefulness of spiders and the fact they don’t bite you and all that rubbish, but those people just don’t get what a fear of spiders means. I’m really not scared that those wee assholes lurking around in the dark are going to kill me or anything - being scared of spiders is all about that physical fear and disgust which you can feel all over your body. I just detest them - it is really that simple. I know it’s not rational, but fear isn’t rational and if it were, the world wouldn’t be suffering from fear and anxiety as much as it does.

The first night in Chimanimani, I discovered a massive wallie (flat house spider) on the wall of my bedroom. I was just about to get ready for bed when I found the guy by the window. My hosts told me they have nests in the roof and come out at night through holes in the ceiling. They also told me they can’t remove them, as they are too fast. It meant I had to fall asleep with Mr Spiderman right beside me. Unsurprisingly, I woke up a few times that night and couldn’t help but monitoring my surroundings. I just felt terrified it had moved closer to my bed or worse: to my head. The next morning it appeared to had left, until it came crawling out of the curtains, and I killed it immediately. Sorry spider fans: I have no mercy for these guys. They just HAVE to leave permanently, for if they don’t, they always know how to find their way back. I now have a new room in Chimanimani and the first thing I did was put newspaper in all the holes in the floor and ceiling, just to prevent these eight-legged dudes from entering. So far, this appears to be successful (knock on wood).

I know snakes are technically no bugs, but they really bug me. While most Africans laugh at my hatred for spiders, I find myself in good company in terms of my snake fear. Most Africans really hate snakes: they think they are the devil (probably for religious reasons) and are terrified of them. Someone once told me there really aren’t any snakes in Chimanimani, so for the first while I was confident enough to go on hikes in Chimanimani without being worried. My host even told me it was safe to swim in Bridal Veil Falls: no crocodiles, no anacondas, etc. This should have been reassuring, but when I actually made it to Bridal Veil Falls and stood there in my swimsuit, this awful picture came to my mind of Freek Vonk (a really annoying Dutch biologist who is obsessed with dangerous creatures and who does everything possible to ensure he gets killed by them some day – I’m just waiting for that very moment to happen) who was swimming with a 7-meter long anaconda in Brazil. It was enough for me to spontaneously want to leave that place and run.

A few days later, I found out that my somewhat irrational reaction had not been that stupid after all, when my hosts’ daughter went on about the snakes she found in the garden. She truly was very pleased about it and told me all about the “house snakes” that had hatched in their yard, about the boomslangs that can bite you when you hike in Chims, and even about the pythons that chill on the road. Ever since that moment, I have been terrified to walk through tall grass, pee in the bush or go on hikes by myself. My sister has a really intense snake phobia (to the extent she couldn’t play Harry Potter video games as a kid because of a really fake-looking, purple basilisk) and apparently this fear has become very contagious over the years.

I don’t know why, but ever since I found out about the existence of snakes in Chimanimani, conversations about these demons just follow me everywhere. It started with my hosts’ daughter, and a few days later, I met this guy who told me he has many snakes in his garden that his cats play with. A few days ago, when we were out in the field, my interviewee led us past a narrow dirt path surrounded by lush green plants, when he told us there was a big snake nearby. He was thinking of a green mamba. He hadn’t seen the snake yet, but he smelled potatoes and rice – apparently a typical snake’s scent. He was happy to tell us that a year ago, an exceptionally big snake started chasing him when he was walking on the very same path. It turns out that Chimanimani is not only home to quite a large number of snakes, it has some of the most disgusting and dangerous ones, too: cobras, green mambas and even black mambas (my worst nightmare). So, it’s safe to say that I have now abandoned all my previous plans to hike in Chims, especially by myself.

Anyway, I'm in Harare until tomorrow and so far, it looks like there are no scary creatures here (unless April 1st is fooling me... Fingers crossed).

See you next week xx