Termite Invasion!

The other night, Jennifer and I were sitting in our room having a good discussion at about 10pm when this large flying bug suddenly appeared fluttering around our light bulb. We immediately sprayed it with DOOM and proceeded to chase it around the room until we finally killed it. A few minutes later, however, we noticed that there was another of these large, winged creatures buzzing sporadically around the room. We chased it down and killed it, only to realize that there was now ANOTHER one to kill! We realized that these bugs were coming in from the crack under the door, and as we were looking at the door, probably ten of the bugs began to crawl in under the door, one right after the other! We began our valiant effort to kill all of the bugs, running crazily around the room swatting at bugs and spraying DOOM at all of them. Finally, we had killed all of the strange bugs and Jennifer said, “What is this? A PLAGUE?” We laughed about it and finished our conversation in peace.
A little bit later, Jennifer went outside and I could hear her gasp from inside the room. I went out to see what had happened, and I saw one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen! Three of the others were sitting under a mosquito net at one end of the verandah, and at the other end of the verandah—right next to our doorway—there was a massive swarm of bugs! Thousands of these bugs were swarming all over the porch, the wall, the doorframe, a desk sitting next to the door, and the light at that end of the porch. There were thousands more swarming all over the ground right beyond the porch. Jennifer said, “I was just joking when I said this was a plague, but I think it really is a plague!” The other three were watching the whole spectacle from the comfort of the mosquito net, and apparently they had just turned the porch light off, enticing all of the bugs to attack our window and door. This is when we experienced the onslaught of bugs coming in under the doorframe.
The following morning, we found out that every year, thousands of these bugs, which are actually African termites, come up out of their holes in the ground. They fly around in huge swarms when the weather gets cooler, then they shed their wings and crawl back to their holes. Unfortunately, not all of the termites did this during the first day of cool weather, but instead, we had a second termite invasion about a week later. The most interesting part of this whole escapade is that the Dinka eat the termites. After the wings fall off, the Dinka collect the termites and fry them. We ate termite at a house the day after the second invasion, and they are not too bad…kind of crunchy, and they taste a bit like corn nuts!
Through this whole experience, I have gained a newfound appreciation for what a plague of locusts might have been like. Not a pleasant experience, for sure!