Life's annoyances in Libya

It's house fly season in Libya. No matter what you do the house seems full of these awful bugs. And they are annoying - dive bombing your head, buzzing around your ears, doing their best to get into your eyes. 

As the weather warms up so does all the garbage that litters the streets around town and this encourages the proliferation of the little beasts. There is also the fruit that fills the trees in the farm lands, overripe fruit drops to the ground and provides the perfect breeding grounds. No matter how hard we try to keep the windows and doors tightly shut we are still plagued by the swarms. It's the time of year I dread.

We've tried fly traps but that just attracted more flies! And we've tried fly paper strips - those long curly, gluey strips you hang around.... they only work if the flies land on them and they are unsightly and there is always the chance that someone will get tangled up in one... a big sticky mess! What seems to work the best is turning all the lights off in the house and waiting for the flies to try to get out the closed windows and then spraying them with a lethal dose of Raid. But is that good for us, we wonder. My vacuum cleaner is full of the nasty little bugs.

There is some respite if you sit outside in the garden, but not much. And in addition to the buzzing of the flies you have the buzzing of drones overhead. Life in Libya these days.... sigh...