One nice thing about all the rain we've gotten recently is that it appears to have washed away the worryingly large beetles that trundle all over the place. It's not that you are in any danger of them; they seem to wander aimlessly around without a care in the world. However, something about bugs that you can hear walking or that have tangible weight sends rods of ice down my spine.
Unfortunately, I found out they do have scorpions here. Though not as big as they get further south, I have this sick feeling that they will eventually get me. Snakes ... no problem. Spiders ... no problem. Scorpions ... well, think of the tunnels of the old Pitfall! video game. Me and Harry, frozen in our prime.
In other news, I eat something called "village chicken" (kuhu kwa hai) every few days at a local restaurant called Nali's. Village chicken is essentially the extreme spectrum of free-range food; in all my time in rural Zambia, I think I've only seen village chickens fed once. They spend all their days scratching, clucking, and staring at the white man in that vacant way only poultry can muster.
Anyway, Nali's really get some great village chickens. They are the consistency of India rubber and have absolutely brown meat; as far as I can tell, they might have served a tour on the Western Front, doubtlessly staring vacantly across at the German lines. And, though cooked, they never seem to be warm. Ah, Zambia ... the center of the unintentional organic movement.
Last, but certainly nearest to my heart, are the Faidherbia albida, the lovely mikona trees. Staring across the green swath of floodplain, it has become easy to distinguish the mikona, as their deciduous habit renders them starkly bare against the skyline. Also, in most cases, they are the only tree in some parts of the plain. Hard to say why; it may be that by shutting down during the rainy season and the annual flooding of the Zambezi, the trees can withstand the waterlogging.
One other thing I've notice is that the deciduous habit is not uniform. The only trees that are completely or mostly bare are the large, mature trees that have never been pollarded. Trees who's branches have been periodically removed for firewood and have consequently sent out new branches appear to retain their leaves on the new growth. This seems to be independent of the trees' age; thick-trunked trees that have been pollarded still have leaf growth on their new branches. I need to spend a day canvassing the seepage (the edge of the plain) to see if this is the case.
It's a testament to the wonders of Nature, this great obdurate column of truth that is life ... I've been looking at this tree for almost four years and have reached the "beginning of wisdom" ... that is, there is so much we don't know about F. albida. It certainly makes life grand, having something to wonder at, to marvel over, to invoke the awe we have as children, when the world is a great mystery! Simply to have and to ponder the mystery is to have completion ... or at least for me.
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