This is another post/blog that mysteriously went missing from my website; I hope I have retold it as it was the first time.
Working at CasaAnna has certainly not been without any entertainment.
At the entrance to the house is a beehive, not a very big one but one nonetheless. We (Mike the caretaker, Giovanni, Ali, Claire and I) discuss at minimal length as to what we were going to do about it. It was thus agreed by all that the bees had to find other accommodation. How were we going to get rid of the bees was the next discussion? The consensus was – to smoke them out, but who was brave enough to tackle this task? Only Giovanni!
Now I have mentioned before how short Ecuadorians are, and Giovanni is no exception. So, he comes out from the Bodega and well we (the rest of us) nearly fell over laughing. He had his usual long pants and gumboots but over his face, he had a cloth to cover his mouth and nose and his cap on his head. Then he put over all this a black bag (in South African we would call it a streep sak) with two holes where his eyes were. He looked like a black KKK. Just too funny!
PS! I hope you noticed that his arms are still left uncovered – safety first right.
He placed at the end of a bamboo pole a box that had a cloth drenched in fuel inside it. Oh yes, he had a hosepipe nearby just in case. Now at this point we were all banned to the house as a safety measure, never mind that Ali and I were busy working with acid without any safety protection, but safety first!! We all (even the dogs and cats) went inside, and Giovanni lit the fueled box and lifted it to the bee’s nest. The bees were furious and naturally flew around like mad things and after awhile Giovanni had decided he had achieved success and put out the fire.
Giovanni the brave!
While all that was going on; Mike, the caretaker took a nap on the floor with his dog Winnie. Such a hard life here at CasaAnna.
