The Fleas Win

On Wednesday when I returned from English Tea, my conversational English class with staff, I found three of my colleagues in my yard discussing the bamboo stands on either side of my yard. The three, the Human Resource Director, the Dean of Students and the Academic Dean, who is also the Presbytery clerk, were investigating the source of an infestation of fleas at my next door neighbors. The pests were so severe that she moved out of her house after suffering multiple bites. Ironically, I have had no problems. Celestin, the Presbytery Clerk, was brushing the bugs off his clothing. He had gotten too close to the bamboo stand. They speculated that the dogs that had taken up residence in the bamboo earlier in the year had brought the fleas. The question was how to get rid of them. After much discussion, their conclusion was to cut down the offending bamboo and treat the ground. They figured they could use the bamboo wood for fencing, so it would not be a total loss. The bamboo is resilient and will grow back. Since I am just a renter, I have no say in what happens to the property. I can only watch and hope that their decision is correct.



 Bamboo Cutters

Early this morning, I heard the distinct sound of machetes in front of my house. Four men were outside my fence, busily chopping at the bamboo. All during the morning, people stopped by to see what was happening, and offer their opinions of the activity. At English Tea, the fleas was all anyone wanted to talk about. Several of the staff had come to see the progress.  Each expressed his own opinion about whether or not the cutting of the bamboo would stop the flea infestation. Just talking about it caused some to begin to scratch, sure they had been bitten when they got near the shrubs. One of the staff insisted that I could not walk past the cutting to get to my house. I needed to take a detour through the rector’s yard and enter my house from the left, to avoid walking past the cutting. I didn’t argue, but smiled to myself because some of the cut branches had fallen into my yard. The fleas were in the yard already. There was no escaping them, but I took the detour and thanked him for escorting me. It made him feel better.

About 4 p.m. the work stopped and the workers went home. About 1/2 of the stand of bamboo has been cut. There are piles of brush between the fence and the roadway and some in both my yard and my neighbor’s We’ll see if the workers return tomorrow or, since it is Friday, the job will wait until Monday, and we’ll see how long before the offending bugs are gone, or if they just find new homes, if the bamboo was their home in the first place..