Eww Gross!
Matthew here…So, I am coming to terms with my biggest “fear” in moving to Kinshasa – if you have a weak stomach, consider this a content warning…
I am a bit of a clean freak. Not quite as OCD about it as my sister Jennifer (who will NEVER walk on a hotel floor without socks or flip-flops and is the Queen of Purell) but I still am pretty picky when it comes to bugs. Part of this comes from doing pest control full-time for a couple years, as well as off-and-on after that. I don’t really care too much about bugs in the yard, on the floor, swimming in the toilet bowl, or even the giant cockroach-eating spiders that hang out nonchalantly on the wall. (I’m not making up any of this, even the spiders are a featured amenity in our new home).
But, here is what I “can’t” handle…and what I am going to have to…
-Cockroaches on the kitchen counters – apparently Nancy Burton plays Whack-a-Roach with the little baby ones because by the time she goes for the bug spray, they are long gone. BARF!
-Deworming my children (same blog).
-Sifting the larvae out of our flour prior to use (holy cow, this takes the cake).
-Having to iron or tumble dry anything that has been line-dried, because you have to kill the mango-fly larvae otherwise they will burrow into your skin and give you nasty boils (Alien anyone?)
So there it is, my biggest hurdle. I can deal with theft, corruption, extortion, foreign cuisine, lack of power and water, broken tools, appliances, and vehicles. But when there is a potential for grubs in my grub – I yack.
The Lind Family 
You’ll be relieved to know that I haven’t had to whack the roaches in quite a while. We learned a few things that cut way down on the roach problem (like checking the egg cartons and rinsing the soda bottles, and emptying the kitchen trash every night, and getting a cat), but none of the houses here are airtight so some will get in. I have a very good recipe for roach poison too. Daniel once got mango fly larvae, over twenty of them, and we had to expel all of them for him – very gross. It happened during an 11 day power outage when we couldn’t run the dryer. Here’s a tip for the flour – put it in the freezer for three days before you sift it. That way there are no live critters and if you miss an egg or two it won’t hatch. Then keep it in an airtight container. They have cheap ones here at H&F store.