Try to wear covered shoes at night

So rainy season has sort of started! It's rained about three times now (since the 15th) but mainly in the evening/night and it hasn't been particularly heavy.

After the first substantial night time rain, the following morning the fields were full of men and boys planting the groundnuts (peanuts – the big cash crop here). From now until the end of rainy season the men (and boys) will be out at the farms and in the fields looking after the groundnuts and the women (and girls) will be attending to the rice crop (as well as cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, maintaining the gardens, looking after the children etc).

Though the rains can make life here more difficult in that everything gets really dirty and rubbish dumps overflow and sand tracks/roads become rivers etc, the rains also bring a relief from the heat. Just before it rains the heat verges on unbearable then there will be a breeze followed by a wind and then rain.
With the rains also come a whole range of interesting and exotic looking insects. You have hundreds of different types of flying insects (all swarming for the light), also bright red spiders, yellow and green ants, transparent beetles and also huge beetles the size of tennis balls!

However this year I have discovered something new, apparently the beginning of rainy season always brings out the black scorpions! There are brown/yellow coloured scorpions which are here all year round and though I’m told their sting is painful it’s not fatal – the black scorpion however is a different story!
If you are bitten by a black scorpion you have to go to the Health Centre immediately and receive a series of injections to counteract its sting. Failure to do so could be fatal!!

So I asked some locals what would be the best way to prevent contact with the black scorpions but I was told that they are everywhere at this time of year. They hide in dark places such as in your shoes, under your bed etc. The advice I was given was use a torchlight when you are doing anything in the dark and try to wear covered shoes at night!


As these creatures hide in dark places I was anxious that I might be stung by one without necessarily realising it so when I asked, ‘will know if I’ve been stung?’ the answer was a definite YES!!!

A (dead) black scorpion at 'Riders' compound. Apparently you kill them by beating them with a stick?