The Inswa

Every year at the start of the rainy season the flying termites appear. I don't know where they suddenly come from but once they arrive you can't miss them. The inswa, as they are called are rather large and move in swarms of what must be hundreds.

The other night, while my house-mate and I were settling down to watch an episode of 'Grey's Anatomy', we heard a loud flapping sound coming from near the dining room light. I have no clue how, but one of those giant insects had managed to enter the house despite our taking every precaution against just that. So we decided that the creature must die. We must have spent about ten minutes comically swatting the air with dusters trying to get the evasive insect down . Eventually with one random blow it was on the floor.

After our little victory, we toyed with the idea of soaking the termite in water and then frying it up as a snack, something we had heard was commonly done as Inswa are quite the delicacy here. We decided this was a good idea but one was not going to be enough so we would wait till we had collected some more. We sat back down to continue watching 'Grey's Anatomy', a new un-winding ritual in our house. And then again we heard the flapping.

Our night was spent killing insects, shrieking, giggling and taking photographs of what had turned out to be an insect safari in our living room. Our killings were mainly inswa and beetles though a cluster of flying ants, a stick insect, a beautiful moth, a locust and a happy looking lizard were also spotted.

Since the insect killing was not enough to work up an appetite, we decided to refrigerate our inswa for frying the next day. Of course, the next day we chickened out. But I am determined to try this delicacy soon. I believe they taste like nutty scrambled eggs. Will have to find out for myself.