Chiswe Scourge

I may have mentioned before that there are termites everywhere around here, and they exist in great number as evident by the frequent termite mounds of considerable size.  Some of them are flying and go by the name of Ngumbi and the others are called Chiswe.  I have not received any reliable information on this, but I think they are just different "casts" of the same species.  The Chiswe are definitely responsible for the gathering of food and they are ravenous.  They consume any and all plant life they can chew up and carry down into their holes.  Sometimes they just bring their nest to the source as in some trees that are covered with a layer of mud underneath which the bark is completely eaten away.  Walking along the sidewalk I noticed that the grass was moving.  I stopped to look closer and it was chiswe that had cut down blades of grass and were carrying it to their hole.  As I was bent down I realized I could actually hear them working and it was loud.  I have become better at recognizing the sound and can catch it from meters away.  We put some logs to sit on around our monthly fire and the next day or so the chiswe had already begun building up mud around it so now we roll them to concrete gutter.  Gary just had a fence built around his garden to keep the dogs out made from reeds and he sprayed it with chemicals to keep them away.  It doesn't seem to be helping because he found them eating out the inside of the reads and they can be heard moving around inside.  The best, and possibly most hazardous, example occured one Sunday morning when we woke up without power.  We weren't too concerned since the power frequently goes out, but later we learned that the power was out because the chiswe had eaten through the pole leading to the school and it fell.  Luckily our school is made mostly of concrete and bricks.  The chickens that are present wandering around all of the villages help keep their numbers down there.  Also precautions are taken by painting trees and poles with lime and spraying chemicals on the corn supply so they can be slowed down, but I don't think they will be stopped anytime soon.