In Regina Coeli we lived in a small tin roofed house. In the daytime it was very hot, but in the evening it became comfortable. The insects were there all day even though the geckos ate as many as they could catch. The gekkos lived behind the curtains. We regarded them as friends because they would snap up flies and mosquitoes immediately they settled within range. But gekkos fight among themselves surprisingly noisily.
We on the sideboard in that house we had a ghetto blaster. We called it the gecko blaster. A combined radio and cassette tape recorder capable of playing music cassettes as well as of tuning in to the BBC world service every evening at 6 pm. At this hour in Zimbabwe radio reception is at its best, the insects are coming out and the geckos are at their loudest. We turned the radio up: hence the ‘Gecko Blaster’.
While it was half dark the electric lights turned on as the generator in the hopital started up. Within a few minutes the praying mantis would find his way the the anglepoise lamp. As the insects gathered around the light his feast began.
Desirable as it was to have him in the house it was hard to find his eating habits attractive. He would often catch sausage flies and eat them alive. He would start at one end of the sausage, the nether end, grasping the bug between his front legs and would munch down eating abdomen, thorax and head in that order. The sausage fly would continue fluttering while the abdomen was completely eaten and only stop when the wings fell off.
At some time in the evening the bats would leave our house and circle outside to feed on moths attracted to our windows. The bats lived on the top of our bedroom walls