Amityville, Botswana

We woke up with the sound of bees through the room. At first, I assumed that there were mosquitos somewhere near my head. Then, I realized that the sound was constant, which would mean that they were near my head and not moving. I went to the window and saw that I wasn't mosquitos but bees, swarming on our screen, inside the glass (which was ajar). I got the camera and shot a little footage, realizing as I stopped filming that some of them were inside. I jumped up and we sprang into action. How were they getting in? How could we stop it? How would we get them out? We decided on smoke and got a fry pan with a lid, matches and newspaper. Rob held the curtain around me and I generated smoke. Most of the bees flew away and Rob was able to maneuver his hand under the screen and shut the glass. I think he trapped a couple but, hey, we tried to spare as many as we could. I'm only sorry that I didn't capture on film me saying, “They're inside!” Rob says it was classic horror movie material. Not the way you want to be spending 6AM on a Saturday morning, let me tell you.

He figures that their hive was destroyed in the big storm yesterday. We had heavy rainfall, as heavy as I've ever seen anywhere, and significant winds. It didn't last long but it was pretty intense while it lasted. Jim was here, meeting with us about future plans, and we thought for a brief moment that he was going to be stuck with us for longer than he had intended.

We're supposed to be taking it easy today but we have a lunch meeting with Jim and Tim, followed by an afternoon meeting with Gerrit, the BSB translation consultant for this region.