One reason why I am here

I have recently realised that one of the reasons I travel is to expiernce things that I otherwise would not get the chance to be a part of. There are occasions where this is taken to the extreme and i expierence something that not only would i never have been able to expierence, but I get to be a part of something that I never even knew EXISTED.

Two days ago i was sitting in my room writing in my journal. As i wrote i noticed a few large dragon fly type bugs flying around my room. I killed them and thought nothing of it as bugs are VERY comon here (it is Africa!) As i wrote i noticed more and more of these dragon fly like bugs on the window and door. At one point the bugs, atracted by my light, were coming in through any crack in the window and door they could find. I felt like my room was under invasion from a flying army of bugs!

My host mother came to my door and told me the water i has asked for to take a shower was ready. I got undressed, wrapped myself in my Pagne (long clothe i use as a robe to walk to my shower) and stepped outside. I looked to the left and saw my entire family fighting a cloud of the flying bugs that were all atacking the light that lights up our yard. I had never seen that many bugs in one place! My host father took a very large bowl, put a few inches of water in it, placed a lamp in the middle of the water (a lamp island), and turned off all the other lights in and around the house. This worked as a bug trap of sorts where the bugs would fly towards the light, get wet, and end up drowning in the water. There were SO many of these flying things that they had to scoop them out with their hands and keep replacing the water. There were thousands! It turns out that all the rain we had that day caused termite eggs to hatch and unleash this army of flying bugs.

That is why i travel. I want to know that when it rains cats and dogs in West Africa termites hatch in the thousands. Amazing! I have now lived through my first invasion of flying termites.

Another story that I will be able to tell my grandchildren someday.