Childhood Days Part 7

Not everything about living in Malawi was lovely. There were nasty things as well! Being Africa, there were various animals around that you wouldn’t want to step on in the dark, or in the light for that matter.

We had snakes. On the odd occasion that we came across a snake in the garden, the garden boy would deal with it. In my cousins’ garden there were black mambas – allegedly – none of us ever saw them, which was lucky because they are amongst the most venomous snakes in the world.

Some of the nastiest creatures were also the smallest. From reading another blog the other day I was reminded of the putzi fly (also known as, amongst other names, the mango fly). They lay their eggs in clothes hanging out to dry and upon contact with human skin the eggs hatch. The larvae burrow into the skin and develop into fully grown maggots if left to their own devices. The unfortunate human host develops multiple boil-like sores, usually on the backs of arms, around the waist, back or bottom. Once discovered putzis are easily removed. A dab of Vaseline followed by a good squeeze will do the trick. The Vaseline stops the maggot from being able to breathe and out it pops. The only way to prevent the hatching, and subsequent burrowing into the skin, is to thoroughly iron all items of clothing, including underwear, to kill all the eggs. So I always wore nicely ironed knickers and socks – bras must have been difficult to iron though! We all suffered from these now and again, due to insufficient ironing, and they were bloody painful! My mum had one once when she was still at school. She had been out to stay with her mum and dad in Tanga, in Tanzania, and didn’t realise she had a problem – putzi in the bum! - until she was on her flight home. She sat in acute discomfort for an incredibly long flight, and when she got back to boarding school her best friend squeezed it out. Now that’s what I call a good friend!

There were some massive spiders too, but not being a spider fan I don’t know what they were!

My mum and dad used to run the club at Chileka Airport – the airport serving Blantyre. It was great fun there because there was a swimming pool. Obviously for a while we spent quite a lot of time down there, and I swam a lot. I remember the pool well, because it was there that I was stung by a scorpion. I was only very small so I don’t remember it, but I was told that I cried for a long time!! Not surprising really.

To go off tangent a little bit, we used to have Christmas parties at Chileka club. Because Malawi is in the southern hemisphere Christmas was (and is!) in the dry season. All the children would be there, in and out of the pool. The club was situated next to the runway, and Father Christmas would arrive by aeroplane! It was very cool!

Obviously the nastiest insects are the mosquitoes, and all of us did have malaria from time to time, despite taking the anti-malarial drugs available at the time. None of us were ever dangerously ill, but it was bad enough.

As a result, none of us are eligible to give blood because we have had malaria. We’re not eligible to give blood in France anyway, because we are from the UK – the French don’t like British blood if you have lived in UK since 1983 because of CJD. Obviously French cows never got mad cow disease so they’re all safe – hmm, don’t think so!

There are no pictures to go with this post, because I thought that pictures of mozzies and putzis might just put you off reading!