Summer bugs

    The summer months have brought summer bugs. Some of them are new and interesting to me, and others aren't; flies for example. The rivers of monster ants are straight out of National Geographic. They'll sometimes even envelop half the broad side of an our building, which brings a grounds keeper or three to exterminate them with a few cans of raid.  One bug has seemed to have quieted down a bit though: one that I've aptly named the barking cockroach. It looks like a cockroach with wings and hangs out in the trees, outdoing any of the most irritating loci with it's several minute long, piercing chirp.
    The most irritating bugs of all however are what they call palomitas de San Pedro (Saint Pedro's popcorn). Though I haven't had to deal with them as of late, they come - hatch, I suppose - once the rain has let up. Clouds of black winged termite-like insects will cover an area in the same fashion a smoke bomb covers a rioting group of Oaxacan teachers. They'll work their way into every nook and cranny of your clothing, hair, and shoelaces. They don't bite or sting, and in fact their wings pop off their bodies as easily as pedals from a daisy.