THE RETURN OF THE FLYING TERMITES

I already mentioned the flying termites before. I am one of the happy fews in Mokolo to have a big neon light outside my house, which means that when the termites decide to leave the underground world to go for a little wander, they mostly gather around my light, which makes me very popular in the neighbourhood.

Termites are a delicacy in Africa and do not go out very often –twice this year and not at all last year, I was told. Therefore when they do go out at night to get some fresh air after the rains, people send their kids to my house to get as many as they can and even the neighbouring cats are big fans. Once caught, the termites are drowned into a bucket of water, then stored,  fried and ready to be eaten!

See Flying Termites pictures

#1 – The light outside my house. The termites are arriving!

# 2, 3, 4 – Félicité and Salomon catching the termites and putting them in a bucket full of water. I fell out with Solomon since because the bugger wrote NASARA in big on my house (white person), just in case someone had not noticed!

# 5, 6 – Deep fried termites. Yummy! ;-)

# 7 – I had a go too. Only a couple as I had a real stomach crisis at the time. It does not taste as crunchy as it looks, it’s very salty and quite soft.