I escorted her into the house to show her this "wall tumor" that had seemingly sprouted overnight. Her response, "chigir yellem"…but I would have to disagree. She proceeded to scrape the growth off of the wall with a dinner plate. Much to my horror, we discovered the wall to be full of bugs. Houses here are constructed with spindly logs and mud. Apparently mud serves as the primary food source for these bugs. Aselef, seemingly unaffected, proceeded to reach her hand into the deep, dark crevasses of the wall in an effort to evict these hungry critters. You couldn't have paid me to do that!
After she deemed the wall to be critter free, we then filled the cavity with ash, and re-mudded. Now I don't know about you, but I'm not aware that ash has insecticide properties. I suspect that they will be back. In the meantime, I've added a new item to my daily routine….wall patrol.
