Nairobi Fly!

I have to tell you about this insect. Its about the length of your little finger nail, but a quarter of the thickness and its red and black and quite distinctive. By the way, the one in the picture is dead and thus looks slightly deflated. I asked Justus to find me one to take a picture in and he brought this one in in his hand!! Its not malicious as such, but it inadvertantly does horrible horrible things to your skin. It doesn't bite, but if it sits on you, and you brush it off, you squash an acidic substance out of it which corrodes your skin - just like an acid burn. So many people seem to have got them, but on black skin it is difficult to see quite how horrible the effect is - but on Pam you can really see what a mess they make! You can see from these pictures, it is like a burn...but it starts small and then reacts and the area grows, and then it gets red raw and seems to dry out and peel whilst being intermittantly gungy. Pam has been in a lot of pain, and it has stopped her sleeping properly - its all pretty rotten for her! The first picture is what it looked like to start with, and the second is what it looks like now! Not nice at all! They gave us some anti-hystamine at the chemist, but yesterday we tried putting toothpaste on it, because thats what the children use at school, and it seemed to at least stop it hurting as much...until it dried...Pam didn't move her neck much at all yesterday actually! It is feeling better today though, she says.

It is also known as the Nairobi Eye because if you get one on your eye and brush it off...well, you can imagine it's not pleasant. Rachael, our house girl, couldn't come to work for a couple of days because her eye had swollen up so much!

Well, here's hoping that I never get one splatted on me anywhere! And don't worry, I'll let you know if I do! Perhaps I'll make a scrap book charting the progress of it, like Pam has...