**D Day

Well there IS more to life in Kampala than insects but boy are they gonna give over and let me tell you some other news? Well no frankly, not this week.

D is for Death

IMPORTANT NEWS! House fumigation done! Fumigation does not involve any kind of smoke or fumes but litres of chemical spray. Not very happy about that – for myself, the boys spraying the house or the environment …. must check it out.

The fumigation was very thorough. Drains were sprayed, cupboards were emptied, tables upturned…

House and drains now cockroach-free for at least three months – yeeee ha!

D is for DDT

On the same note, headline yesterday “Court throws out DDT case, spraying to resume.” DDT kills mosquitoes (thereby preventing malaria, a very common and sometimes fatal disease). The World Health Organisation overturned a 30 year ban on DDT, a ban I hadn’t realised existed. According to another site “numerous studies on DDT have shown its environmental persistence and its ability to bioaccumulate, especially in higher animals. Of particular concern is its potential to mimic hormones and thereby disrupt endocrine systems in wildlife and possibly humans.”

D is for Despondent

Was getting down last week at lack of fitness. I don’t even run for a bus anymore (the office is the spare bedroom) and everything had become a real effort; picking my legs up felt like dragging two hefty watermelons and I was getting fed up hear myself moan about it, I just wanted to rest up and eat some more! Lol. I knew I had to snap out of it, as it was starting to knock my confidence plus a group of us are climbing Mt Elgon in four weeks time (eighth highest peak in Africa!)

Lake Bunyonyi view. Diary of a Muzungu

D is for Davina

• I am only drinking at the week-ends, and then only in moderation
• I am not smoking
• I am going to bed earlier
• I am getting up earlier
• I’m going to aerobics once or twice a week. Sometimes I walk there – uphill– then run home. Even if I take the car, I’m still getting an hour’s exercise (i.e. so don’t beat yourself up over it Charlotte!)
• I’ve done the Davina McCall work-out DVD twice this week
• I am joining the Hash (House Harriers) – for the running not the drinking! [First run tomorrow – 5 – 10k, oh god that’s most I’ve run in three months. I can’t back out of it now I’ve told you all – so ask me how it went!]
• I am not dwelling on the not-so-positive health / lifestyle aspects because they are only part of the temporary readjustment.

OK well some might call this last one ‘denial’, but hey whatever works! (Actually people have said right from the off how quickly I’m settling in so I’m probably being impatient with myself …)

D is for don’t you DIG this cricket?!

Insects freak me out – unless they’re HUGE! Somehow that makes them more interesting… nsenene grasshopper

Cricket (or locust?) close-up

I screamed at Simpson that this was a cockroach but this is apparently a cicada. It lives in the trees in our compound (YUCK)

**In everyday speech, D-Day has come to mean “a day when something important will happen.” Literally, D-day was “the day during the Second World War when the Allies began their invasion of Europe by attacking the coast of northern France. The D-Day landings began on 6 June 1944.”