A new 'project'

The plot of land next to our house is empty and i realised I have a great project on my hands here. every year in the dry season the owner has the vegetation cut as far as it can possibly be cut. Then, the rest of the year nothing gets done. Last year the weeds were growing over the gate and it was almost like the gates to sleeping beauty's castle, so overgrown was everything. It was almost impossible to comprehend that all that greenery had grown in less than a year.

This year the vegetation was cut about 1,5 - 2 months ago. We had the usual influx of unwanted visitors (we think there is still a snake hiding out somewhere behind the house but we can't find him). I'd forgotten about my intention to take regular pictures of next door's plot but this weekend I took my first ones.

 For the coming year, I'll be taking pictures regularly to show how fast vegetation can grow in the heat and humidity that makes up most of Yangon's weather. The rainy season has started this week so it is a good time to keep an eye on the property next door.

I hope that the land will not be sold somewhere down the line, that would be disastrous to my 'project'. It is a distinct possibility though since land and houses are a hot commodity at the moment and there is no sign of a slacking market. But who knows, i might be lucky and show you some nice 'before-and after' imagery.

A snake in the back yard

Yesterday when I arrived home Xenne ran outside to tell me the news.. we had a snake in the garden. 

Apparently it came via the mango tree from the garden next door. That house had been empty for a while and the garden hadn't been maintained well even before  that.

KK killed it eventually but he said it hadn't been easy. The snake was fast and he said it was of the poisonous kind. Mmm, glad I wasn't there. I did see it this morning though; a long, thin, green-and-white snake.

This morning, the mango tree lost several of its branches, especially the big one that reached our roof. I hope that after the huge black ants who also came from that mango tree, and now the snake, the mango tree will host no more guests who we rather do without.

Yuck spiders

Yesterday while talking to hubby, he told me that a couple of days before he had killed a big spider in our bathroom. Nice. Thank you very much. That was more than I wanted to know.

He said not to worry. The bigger one was in the dining room and that one was history too. He now claims there are no spiders in the house anymore. Something that I find very hard to believe and know not to be true since we have two daddy-long-legs hanging in the bathroom. Then again, these are not what I consider big spiders.

When we first moved into the house there was a spider the size of a bathroom wall-tile right next to the sink. Now I keep checking even more thorough when I enter. I don't want to be surprised again. I know how big spiders can get here, I've seen a few examples. Luckily not too many (yet). The huge cockroaches are bad enough. The joy of living in a tropical climate .....

Time to go home

It is half past 2 and I'd planned to go home ages ago. It is raining so hard that the chance of getting a taxi, let alone a taxi at a near to normal rate, are between 0.0 and 0.5 %. It hasn't rained this hard since the beginning of the monsoon season. I'm sure that big parts of Yangon. like the downtown area near Sule, are flooded as they often are. I hope that it is OK near our house. We haven't had much trouble with water yet and I hope it stays that way. But these are a lot of extra drops on an already waterlogged Yangon. It has been raining heavily for the last 2 weeks or so.

Xenne and Thandar are happily playing computer games in the ICT-room so they don't mind too much. Unfortunately, lunch is at home. Though it looks like lunch is going to turn into linner or dunch, it already being this late and it'll take us another half hour at least before we're home.

Mosquito time

And they are enjoying their meals that's for sure. I don't like using mosquito killer much but we had no option. There were just too many around.

Even here at school, this first period I have gained 3 or 4 more bites on my feet and ankles. Apparently, these mosquitoes are into foreign food. And the bites are itchy! I am very undignified when I start attacking my ankles in a frenzy but that can't be helped.

It must have been all the rain that came down at the beginning of the week. Which was followed by some fairly warm and decently dry days. A perfect hotbed for mosquitoes.

The side effect of the spraying last night was that we caused a massacre among the big black ants in one of the downstairs room. After sweeping the floor we literally had a pile of them.