Mayotte by Numbers

One little, two little, three little centipedes, four little, five little, six little centipedes... Yes, thus far, over the space of four days, we have seen six baby centipedes in the house, five of them in our bedroom, and the sixth, slightly mangled, in the living room next to the bookcase. I wager it was carried there by a cat. Six, and the rainy season hasn't really started yet. I must admit that they are quite beautiful with their ocher bellies, chestnut backs, blue-green legs, and leaf-green mandibles. If I can quell the instinctive urge to SMASH them when I see them, I'll catch one and photograph it for your viewing pleasure. Pointless, I suppose, to hope I never see another one as long as I live.

Five makes the number of consecutive days that the water has been cut off, the lack lasting from three to ten hours.

Yesterday, we lost the power for an hour and a half (first time since our arrival. Well, *first* time it was city-wide. The first first time for us was when a newly-bought, faulty power strip shorted everything out).

Twice is the number of times we've had something stolen.

If I had the weather channel, I'd tell you temperatures and the amount of humidity in the air.

Not nearly high enough is the number of mosquitoes I have sucked up with the vacuum cleaner. Succeeding in catching the little buggers is my only joy when doing housework. I imagine it might qualify me for sadistic status that I take immense, yes, immense pleasure in picturing their tiny wings ripped from their bodies and said bodies flattened against the filter as their bloodslurpers are torn off.

Because Writing Wank Deserves a Separate Post

( What to do, what to do? )

And then there were seven

Yes, seven centipedes. And this one was climbing the wall. So much for the spray that kills ants and cockroaches working on the multi-legged beasties. And so much for the photo I wanted to take because Julien was already doing a smashy-dance on the critter before I could say stop.

I forgot to include in my number post about how many roaches we have seen here. Well, now, let me say five. One of them was on the mosquito net, on the INSIDE with us one morning, hanging precariously over Julien's head. Average roach size: an inch and a half. Number of roaches the roach traps have caught? Zero. But the one under the sink did catch a milipede. :-(