The Case of the Flying Cockroaches

There are 7 of us interns here in Mombasa right now as part of the FSD program. We get together each Friday for Swahili lessons and to share experiences. Now as I mentioned in an earlier post I feel quite lucky that I am living with an affluent family that has a modern, clean home in one of the best areas of Mombasa. Not all the other interns are so lucky. One in particular, arrived on Friday with glazed eyes in a state of horror. She had been awakened the night before to the sound of loud hissing and then flying (yes flying!) 6 inch cockroaches coming into her bed and starting to crawl on her. Terrified she started screaming and the family ran in, just picked up the cockroaches, broke them in half then told her to go back to sleep. Clearly this was not possible and she sat up all night panicking as they continued to come into her room. Then the next day the families' 2 year old baby climbed onto her bed and peed on it. Their answer was to just flip the mattress! Then to make matters worse she has been without running water for most of the week (something quite common here along with all day electricity outages). Both of these occur regularly at my house too.

I realize now just how lucky I have it and am grateful for my host family. In fact I'm getting quite spoiled since they have two house staff that do everything for me. They even take my shoes when I arrive home and clean them for me. My room is cleaned daily and my clothes, washed, ironed and folded. I could get used to this.