Kipilefti

When I went to sleep last night, it was raining. When I woke up this morning, it was raining. When I walked to school, it was raining. Mama told me to take one of their umbrellas and I didn’t argue: the rain was pretty hard. I love the rain, so I was pretty thrilled. As I walked I whistled “Singin’ in the Rain”, which earned me some strange looks from the people I greeted between notes. Sitting in class (our last day of Kiswahili, our last day at our school), I saw a flock of cattle egrets land in the schoolyard and then my attention was completely diverted. The egrets took off and strange dragonfly-ish bugs with huge wings and small bodies filled the air, flying through the raindrops. An amazing sight, since bugs and rain usually don’t mix. We all stopped to look; “Where I come from,” our teacher told us, “we eat them. They’re delicious. But these ones are just babies; we wait until they’re bigger.”

I didn’t think more about it until, chatting with mama at home, she called me outside. Those same bugs were whirring around the light outside our door, throwing themselves at the brightness. She called Bebe and Ivan, too, and Ivan immediately climbed up the bars on the window underneath the light and grabbed a few insects. Bebe ran to get a basin of water and Ivan tossed the bugs in. Mama and I went back inside to eat dinner.

“Do you want to try them?” she asked halfway through the meal. “Sure”, I said honestly. I was curious.

I left my room to brush my teeth and my little sister came up to me with a bowl of fried things. I looked closer and saw that they were bugs, with most of the wings removed. True to my word, I picked the one with the fewest wings left on and ate it. It was pretty good: it just tasted like fried and crunchy. I contemplated the bug for a bit too long before eating it, though, so I don’t think I’ll be trying one again…