House Pets

     Moving into a new house also means acquiring some new ‘pets’. First, we have the hundreds of adorable little tiny ants that seem to be particularly interested in my toilet and bowls of water sitting on the counter….

     Next we have the salamander/gecko (I should probably know exactly what he is but I’ve never been the herpetology expert) that lives in my bathroom. I named him Johnny and decided to keep him around after he refused to go into the lovely Tupperware container I was going to use to put him outside….

These next guys almost got evicted last night because around 4am there was an extremely loud and annoying chirping noise coming from the window by my bed that they have been chilling in for the past few days. Upon opening the window to kick them out, however, I realized it was coming from outside so I left them alone, turned out the light, put my earplugs in and went back to sleep. 

     Finally, we have Arnold the wall spider that keeps me company in the kitchen/living room. He likes the corner under the window and will gladly eat any mosquitos that roam his way, so I keep him around in addition to the many other spiders that seem to enjoy the miscellaneous corners of every room. I decided that I definitely preferred spiders to mosquitos so I’m hoping they will hold up their end of the deal!

     This house came with significantly more mosquitos because it is closer to the river, so I hung my mosquito net and have found it fairly malfunctional, especially when they get trapped under the net with you at night! That little buzzing in your ear while you try to go to sleep is not pleasant. I need to work on rigging up a bit better of one before the rainy season hits. But overall, who needs a dog when you’ve got all these lovely critters to keep you company?!  :-P  Welcome to Africa, my friends.