(my name)
P.O. Box 972
Masaka, Uganda
Well I finally moved into my new house. It took nearly a month, but I'm moved in and almost settled. It's a small two room place with a bathing area and flush latrine (!) accessible by outside doors. I'll try to post something visual once I get it all set up. My organization is supposed to provide me with a bed frame, table and chair, but so far they've only given me a bed frame (I bought the mattress myself), so my house is fairly bare. I'm slowly acquiring some shelving, etc and it's slowly becoming a home. I'm planning on planting some sunflowers that grow insanely big in front of my bathing area so it provides some sort of fence to the house. I'm also planing on planting a small area of herbs sometime this week too. It'll be nice to be able to cook with some fresh herbs again! Also this week I'm going to try making my own yogurt. It's supposed to be really easy and I can make a small amount each afternoon and it'll be ready in the morning! I'm hoping it works well and I don't make myself really sick. :)
So like the title says, grasshopper season has begun. I was thinking grasshopper season was in December, so it snuck up on me a little! The grasshoppers here are bigger than they are in the States, but slower, I think. All the little kids at the center (where I work) run around with grasshoppers in their hands, torturing the poor little bugs. They throw them up in the air and try to catch them as they fall back to the ground. The impact when they hit the ground stuns the grasshoppers a little so they kind of flop around a little, just slow enough for the kids to grab hold of them again. They inevitably lose legs, wings, etc and die a slow death....I'm not much of a fan of this activity...can you tell? ha
I really like the way they catch grasshoppers here. They set up a bunch of metal barrels with long lengths of metal siding sticking out of the barrels. They then hook up lights above the barrels so that the light shines on the metal siding and attracts the grasshoppers. When the grasshoppers see the light they fly into the metal siding and, I guess stun themselves, so they fall in the barrels and can't get out again.
All the people I talk to here (including most Muzungus [foreigners - usually white people, all Asians are called "Chinese"]) really love them. I'm not sure how much I'll enjoy them, but I'm determined to try one. The idea of eating a bug really grosses me out, but if I can get past that, I think I'll actually enjoy them.
I stole this picture from someone else's site:
