Minor annoyances of Madagascar

Cloth eating bugs

Sorted through a bag of clothes I’d left here yesterday, to discover that they too had been decimated by some clothes eating bugs.

I’ve no idea what they are so I attach a photo so that someone can tell me. Whatever they are I watched with smug satisfaction as the ants cleared away dozens of them in less than 3 minutes – ant Christmas apparently.

Luckily the orange dress that they were most partial to was one I got made whilst recovering from Chikungunya (type of Dengue Fever) so it was much too small. Especially as I got pregnant a month later and, unlike Malagasy mothers, gained some pounds (see post You are so fat).

Power cuts

It’s been a bad week for power cuts. Saturday evening we lost power at 6pm for the next 13 hours. Sunday it cut at 7am for the next 25 hours. Last night we lost it at 6pm and it’s still not back on at 7.15 the next morning.

And the internet café was off yesterday at different times when I went up there so I had 2 wasted trips.

I don’t suffer too badly because of my laptop which has a decent battery and contains my music, films, games and writing. And we go to bed here so early (mixture of having a baby and natural rhythm with darkness) that the lack of light isn’t a disaster. However, I don’t like waking to breastfeed a baby in mosquito filled darkness.

Flip flop wounds

Two days ago I was delighted to get a rare chance to walk somewhere without my son but disappointed to get blisters on the top of both feet from my supposedly sensible flip flops (thongs to Americans).

Being the tropics, both of these minor afflictions are now infected and oozing puss and blood. Out comes the betadine (iodine). I was told it is best to dilute iodine rather than use it neat otherwise it kills all the white blood cells trying to fight the infection. Not sure that science is correct but less is more was the conclusion.

[Note (added November 2007) it took 2 months for these wounds to heal and have left sensitive 'stains' on both feet so I still have to be careful with shoes that touch the affected areas.]