War on the Roaches

This trip has confirmed that I am totally disgusted by insects and other creepy crawlers! I found a couple of cockroaches on the floor of the kitchen a while ago and quickly put an end to their lives. Then, a couple days ago, when we returned from Ooty, we found the nasty creatures on top of the kitchen counter and underneath one of the cups that I had washed and left upside down. That was it – I lost it.

I went over to the store next door and got myself a large can of “cockroach killer” spray, which advertised that it can kill the beasts in their hiding places. Well, I knew that their hiding places are the drain holes under the kitchen sink and the ones out in the corridor. So I sprayed a liberal amount in the drain holes and all around the kitchen floor, especially in the corners and under the fridge. Then I closed the door and left. A couple of hours later, I went back to the kitchen and found 6 huge roaches and a whole bunch of little ones, all dead and dying on the floor. It was a sweet moment! I swept them all outside and scooped them into the dustbin.

I checked the kitchen again after our pizza outing last night, and found a few more dead roaches. This spray thing works great. I love it. I found some more dead ones this morning and sent them packing too. It seems like the number of dead is decreasing, so either the spray is wearing off or the roach community is being diminished or, worst case, they are adapting! I may have to escalate my methods!

NM

Some of you may be aware of Nadim’s hatred of earwigs. I think he is even less fond of cockroaches! Beyond Nadim’s cockroach adventures we got in another trip to the “Big Bazaar”. It was nice to get into a mildly air conditioned space. It’s been really hot here the past few days. We’ve adapted so that we’re fairly comfortable when the room temperature is around 29 degrees celcius, as it usually is throughout the morning, but the thermometer now reads 33 degrees and the power was out this evening so we didn’t have our fan and we were a little warm. The power is back and so is the fan and we’re feeling a bit better.

At the Big Bazaar department store we found a few shirts for the girls. When you’re only paying a couple of dollars for a shirt, it’s hard to resist. I also bought some fabric. It’s cool the way they sell it here. They give you enough to make a long shirt/dress, a matching colour for the pants and a third fabric for a long scarf. I’m planning to make something for the girls when we get back to Ottawa, but I’ll use a style more suited for Canada. I wish I had my sewing machine with me, but it was a little too big to pack!

CM