“David…you live in the bush, aren’t there some things that aren’t so great about being surrounded by wildlife and things that can eat you? All you’ve written about so far are the amazing wildlife and relaxing camp life. Isn’t there anything that you don’t like about being in the bush?”
Of course this is true (see photos of amazing chameleon that walked through camp today and the start of the “great” wildebeest migration; and yes, those are all wildebeest in the background).
However, earlier this week we had a Siafu invasion. First, let me explain to you what Siafu are. Literally I think it translates to “safari ant” in kiSwahili. Basically they are these ants that form lines throughout camp and head off on a safari elsewhere.
And then they bite.
I’ve heard that some local Masai actually use Siafu as a natural way of stitching a wound back together. You place the Siafu at the locality of the wound, let it bite on with its death-grip like pincers, and tear off the body so the head stays in place.
I’m not entirely sure if this is actually practiced, or if they are just messing with me (they do this a lot, like when they tell me how to say a word in kiSwahili and it’s not anywhere close to the actual translation). Either way, when these suckers bite on, it’s darn near impossible to pull them off.
The worst part is, they come at such infrequent times that you forget completely about them and then find yourself standing in one of their lines, becoming entirely covered before you even know what hit you.
Beautiful pictures David! Nice haircut too!
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, what you heard about using "siafu" for stitching is probably true. In the movie Apocolypto, a South American tribe used rain forest ants to stitch wounds just as you described. Intense!