The changing world (19) Apr 1971

Insects increase with the rains. Ants are always with us. Some are sugar seekers. Stink ants are just that when disturbed. Soldier ants we do not see but all non-concrete or brick buildings need a layer of metal pan in the walls low down to protect against the red ants. When the latter swarm the locals catch therewith a sack over the holes from their mounds. Boiling water floats off the wings for the bodies to be fried. One of my few Nigeria regrets is I was too chicken to try this delicacy. I am told they are nutty.
   Other seasonal insects included sausage flies, a description of their abdomens. Prone to fly round the light at night like many insects. We had bib flying beetles which little boys would pick up to give as scary presents to missionary aunties. At Daffo we had a plague of earwigs which got into everything from keyholes to toys. They were legion. Hunting spiders did not make webs relying on phenomenal speed to catch prey. Scorpions were fairly common, the small brown ones that is. They were more lethal than the large, bis as your hand black ones. Our David had a close call at Langtang when a small one dropped out od a cardboard box he upended on his head.
   I am told the pain from a scorpion sting is excruciating. One colleague was stung and given local anaesthetic. She said as it wore off to was like fire travelling cup the limb. One recommended relief was to hold onto the spark plugs of a running motor!
   Snakes we rarely saw. The pharmacy stocked antivenin. We had sent carpet vipers live to a South African lab to get specific monovalent vaccine. Unfortunately with apartheid supplies dried up. So than snakes were sent to an institute in Iran. I do not know what happened after the revolution there. Once when at Zamko on holiday the dispenser came begging a ride into hospital for a local with carpet viper bite. The snakes were small and hidden in the sand, quite common in that are. I drove into town at very high speed, Peter Clark navigating on a recently graded laterite road with no culverts. As I approached the drift around where a culvert was to be placed he would warn me and I reduced speed. Finally he said straight on to town now. I would have been doing over 70 mph when a last unpredicted drift appeared ahead. I went tino tremendous four wheel drift through the diverted road and out again. Peter apologised and congratulated me on my driving.
   On another occasion in Limakara a father brought me his son suffering from a haemolytic snake bite. Mist venom is quick acting, near-toxic. Some though attacks the blood slowly.This boy was in a terrible state, oedematous and bleeding everywhere. I knew he was terminal but out of compassion took him to Gwoza hospital. We rarely saw poisonous snakes. Among those feared were spitting cobras. They aimed venom at your eyes.
   Of course the worst insects were the mosquitoes bringing irritating bits and malaria. We always used nets at night. Some of our houses had screening. The worst place for them was near Lake Chad. You stayed in afloat dark. My first bout of malaria was in Maiduguri. I thought I was merely coping badly with the extreme heat. No, the heat was inside me. We always took anti-malarial. Our only jabs were the travel necessities of smallpox and yellow fever, later cholera which was the least effective. Typhoid and tetanus were routine but we never had anything against hepatitis, a common scourge expats.
   I believe Nigeria should erect a monument to the anopheles mosquito for I believe it saved Nigeria from British white settlers, unlike east Africa and South, Also southern Nigeria deserves a memorial for the test fly which spreads sleeping sickness. That prevented the Islamic jihad reaching southern climes for the Muslim warriors were cavalry and the sickness killed their horses.
   Storms accompanied by much lightning. This area has one of the world's highest incidences of lightning strikes and between storms the night sky is full of flashes between the clouds. It is not uncommon for cattle herders to be brought in after strikes, usually DOA, dead on arrival. Our friend the Clarks has their house struck and fire started. I was once in the rocks above Rockhaven enjoying a quiet cigar when lighting struck nearby. I was concerned for my safety then wondered if I believed in providence or not. I did but not in testing.
  On Easter Monday visited Assob Falls on the edge of the plateau, scene of a fatal accident a year before we arrived. A party from Vom went their and were warned by locals that the water had not yet come. They did not understand this ferried to a storm above on the plateau. The missionaries bathed, the flood came and one failed to escape from the stream. Her body was found days later. Some years later we too witnessed a drowning. We were at Kafanchan with a CMS friend., Susan Davies who in fact had a lifesaving qualification. Two students came down to swim in the fool beneath the waterfall. Later when only one emerged we asked where his friend was, 'Dead' he said. The undertow from the falls had carried him under. We asked the boy what he would do. 'Nothing' he said fearing he would be blamed. Sue took him back to the college to be witness that there was no foul play, Days later the body was recovered downstream. We had been there with our children who were blissful unaware of witnessing death.
   Mid April our imported fridge at last arrived. Until then we must have managed without. Went to see rain dances in the town. Two suspected cholera cases. Made stocks of IV fluid bottles. Brought £1250 payroll from Jos. Postwar armed robbery was not a concern for us though it was made a capital offence. A silly law as robbers might as well kill to get away. Execution was by public firing squad, a popular spectacle.
   Visitors from England and Nigeria.