Catching Termites
Before the urbanization of the natural land surrounding the township I lived in as a child that was built for employees who worked at a battery making factory, we lived in ignorant bliss.
We had three jobs; go to school, run a few errands and play. O how we played! There was not a game we didn’t play in a day. We played house, hide and seek, cops and robbers, monkey in a tree, chidunune, round us, football matches, netball, catch, dance before you sit, stick in the sand, demama, whyda and other games we had no names for.
Life was good, it was all about having fun, waiting to be called for meals or to take a bath so we could look clean and. proper by the time our fathers returned from work. It was only after this that we’d get some screen time and watch TV, it was around this time that children’s programs aired on TV.
The advent of the rain season was one of my favorite times of the year, for one it meant we would soon be eating fresh foods from the farm. It also meant we’d get to play chasing boats; a game in which we made paper boats and raced them in the dirty rain water flowing in the drainages. My mum forbade me from playing that game because the rain water carried germs and would give me infections on my legs. I still have two scars on my legs from an infected wound I got from back then. But I was a headstrong child and did what headstrong kids do, play anyway.
My most favorite thing however was catching flying edible termites, because it wasn’t just a game, it was doing something to help put food on the table. The kid who caught the most termites was praised and bestowed upon an enthusiastic attaboy/girl.
Being a competitive child, I was determined to win that honor, even though I was the youngest child and only girl. I beat my brothers to it and most kids in the neighborhood.
I realized to catch termites, you had to be smart, you had to study them. Know what time they came out of their hills, know what attracted them and use that to lure them. So I developed a secret strategy. We would turn off the lights in the house and leave only the light on the veranda on, termites were attracted to light and they’d flock to our house. Step two involved trapping them; to do this we’d get small plastic basins and fill them with water, because termites have light wings once they touched water they’d be stuck and the secret lay in how quickly you’d remove the ones stuck on the surface so that you could catch some more and I was an expert at this.
Because the termites would get in our faces and distract us from this job, I would wear a hoodie and my sun glasses even though it was at night as this would allow me to work without much distractions. I also asked my mother to buy me some candles that I would take on the other side of the house and trap more termites by wetting the surface of the window seal.
By next morning I would have a full basin of termites and that would make me so proud whenever I received the praise from my parents and envy from the other kids.
Looking back I wondered why the other kids didn’t just do what I did and put in the same effort as I did but now that I’ve grown older I’ve learnt that people have different motivations and different thought patterns that drive action. For me in that moment, it was very important to receive attention and praise from my parents, that was my chief motivation.
What drives someone to stay up late working so hard and what drives someone else to just stay in and do nothing when they could be working as hard as the next person is multifaceted. People are different, what is important to one may not be important to another and that’s why it’s cardinal to take time to study what works for different people. Like catching termites, know what attracts them and know how to get them once they get there.
Life is pretty simple in that regard. All you need is to give sometime to thought, to observation and to strategizing before sprouting into action and you can win at anything.
A man who takes more time sharpening the axe will cut through a tree quicker and use less energy than the one who gets up early to start cutting the tree with a blunt axe.
Use the tools at your disposal.
