Embu Gangsta Roaches

Aunty Mshairi, the following content is not for your eyes….

So I was just chatting with Sarah about cooking, garlic and cockroaches when I realized I should just check out the kitchen corner in my appartment. I had cooked some rice with garlic today, and the sufuria still needed to be covered.

Upon arrival in the kitchen, I found this:

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One brave Embu Gangsta Roach eating garlic. MY garlic.

While some parts of my brain suggested something like “WHAT THE FUCK??!!”, the other, more civilized part upstairs suggested to pick my cam and take some evidence from the crime scene. In fact, this dear roach was SOOOOOOO busy with her task of eating MY garlic that I started talking to her.

I guess she doesn’t understand German.

Yani, since when do these roaches like garlic? I thought they only party for beer and other sweet things…interesting….

(and no, I didn’t kill her!)

UPDATE: Now that’s one singoooool roach that will make you look like an idiot who never cleans his kitchen. Aterere….I’m a hunter, baby. I’ll get ya! YEAH!

So there I went, with a broom, a sponge, some Doom and vicious thoughts of revenge in my head, trying to track down THIS particular roach that ate my garlic.

In other words: while cleaning the kitchen tonight, I managed to locate HER (yes, her? could be a male, KM, true – just look at those nini at the bottom) under the kitchen sink….and then paralyzed her with DOOM.
And yes, she’s the one, she’s the one! And she wasn’t alone – her somehow darker brother came out as well. Duuuuude. Embu! Gangsta! Roaches!

I killed them both.

And this is how a garlic eating cockroach in Embu, Kenya became blog material 22 hours before she was eventually “promoted to glory”.

Author: jke

Hi, I am an engineer who freelances in water & sanitation-related IT projects at Saniblog.org. You'll also find me on Twitter @jke and Instagram.

24 thoughts on “Embu Gangsta Roaches”

  1. JKE,
    Have you ever been to someone’s home and prayed that they do not offer you food or drink lest you offend them by saying no? Worry not because you are not in this category. You fall in to the category of people who I pray never invite me to their place…

    Just out of curiosity – if you did not kill IT what did you do to IT?

  2. Kui, I invited it over for lunch next day. At least, it was still covered with garlic so that it would make a nicely spiced protein bonus for tomorrows rice meal.

  3. JKE,
    “It would make a nicely spiced protein bonus for tomorrows rice meal.”
    This reminded me of Kenyan High school food.

  4. LOL at i invited it over for lunch the next day. Heh heh. I would have walloped it to a pulp without a second thought. Now what did you expect them to eat when you take off without notice and leave them hungry? :-)

  5. YUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK. Eeeeeekkk.

    She? eti she? why is she female?

    Halafu whats with the lines lines on her/HIS body.

    Yukkk, halafu garlic? Smh, I hope you offered HIM/her listerine since you did not kill HIM/her. Ok, no, wait…why did you not kill HIM/her?

  6. EEuuwww!!! This is justifiably how you get refunded for your rent check. That is a green incredible hulk version of a roach. I would sleep much better if I knew you had killed it.

  7. Real One, sure, just quote the source.

    Mimmz, thx for the hint. Yani, I think these roaches are everywhere in Embu.
    I normally use chalk to stop these bastards from entering my realm, but I guess I missed out marking the kitchen as well. The chalk works perfectly well, btw. And on various websites it says you should actually put garlic (!) in your kitchen to prevent them from coming. Guess these Embu Gangstas are really used to shaggz style – eating just about anything. And I normally put all my food in sealed containers – except for this singooool piece of garlic.
    And here are some interesting facts:

    Cockroaches first appeared on the Earth in the Paleozoic era, approximately 400 million years ago, and they have changed very little since then. These insects have probably withstood the test of time because of their amazing inherent ability to survive extreme disturbance events such as floods, droughts, and fire.
    Although cockroaches have preferred food sources, if they’re hungry enough, they’ll eat almost anything. Even products that most humans would not consider edible, such as starch-based paints, wallpaper paste, envelope glue, and bar soaps, provide critical nutrients for these tiny animals. (source)

  8. Boss, trust people to look gift horses in the mouth! The thing has
    1) Brought itself to your kitchen
    2) Seasoned itself
    3) Availed itself

    Chief, what more do you want? BREAK OUT THE KNIFE AND FORK!

  9. This is disgusting – yuk reminds me of being in Lagos and the sound of roaches in the kitchen in the middle of the night – as a child I was petrified – traumatised by roaches and lizards and what have you. I remember my mother being constantly at the end of her tether due to my phobia with lizards – huge things with red heads that would find their way into our house and be traumatised themselves cause of the terrazzo floor. Then my Dad would bring home a bucket full of huge snails dump then in the kitchen and by morning they would be all over the bloody floor waiting to be cooked and presented on the table for tomorrows dinner with okra soup – and i was supposed to eat them. As a very young child I used to cry that I cannot eat the soup but my parents would make me eat it – horrible. no wonder i am a nervous wreck in my old age:)

    Once in Belize I stayed in this cheap cheap room place and woke up to roaches everywhere = thank god i had my wrap which covered me from head to toe I mean I am not that daft to lie in bed without totally covering myself! I was hysterical for days. God yuk please do not publish any more of these horrors!

  10. Ciiku :-))

    M – in fact I was thinking about adding some soja sauce to enhance the taste.

    Sokari, my dear, pole (sorry). Aren’t there any roaches in Spain?

  11. Eating your GARLIC? But.. but… roaches are supposed to hate garlic. We put garlic around the house (or bay leaves) to repel them!

    We won’t be doing THAT any more!

    Now I put clorox (bleach, Javel) around the windows and doors and cabinets. YUK! Thanks for the great photo! :-)

  12. Laura, i read about this coffee trap in use somewhere in the US where ppl fill an old jar with some old coffee etc.

    Yes, that roach ate my garlic, which is why I was so surprised coz I had expected them not to eat any garlic at all!

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