About two weeks later, I was spending a quiet afternoon at home and had decided to take my dog, Tupo, for a walk. I brought my shoes out to the porch where Tupo stays on a long leash that lets him roam around the front yard. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone running very fast out of the woods beside my house. It was a teenage boy and the way he was flailing his arms, it looked like maybe some bees were bothering him. He continued to run until he was out of my sight. A minute or so later, I heard some bees buzzing around my head so I darted inside and slammed the screen door. A couple of bees had made it into the house but they were quickly DOOMed. As I looked out onto the porch I saw Maria, my housegirl, had just come back from getting a bucket of water from the river. She was swatting at some bees and I warned her, in the best Swahili I could come up with, that there were many. Just after she replied that it was only one bee, she started screaming and running. About that same time, Tupo started crying and ran by the door into the kitchen on my porch. His leash was long enough to allow him just inside the doorway where the charcoal stove was giving off some smoke. He was pawing at his nose and yelping, but just as I was about to call him inside, the whole swarm arrived. I have to admit, I panicked at first, running from room to room checking the windows to make sure the bees couldn't get in. Outside the windows they were everywhere, thousands of them. I started spraying DOOM everywhere I thought they might be able to squeeze in. They really seemed to be concentrated in the back of the house so I decided to risk opening the front door for a few seconds to get Tupo inside. He ran in and the few bees that followed were quickly "Knocked Down Fast" with the stuff in the black and red can. He didn't seem like he was stung more than once or twice. From my bedroom window I saw Maria and the school security guard watching the scene from about 100 yards away until their arms started waving wildly and they both ran off. Once I was sure that the bees couldn't get in the house, I calmed down a little and just watched in amazement at how many there were and how aggressively they were flying around. It was only a momentary calm because the next thing I heard was the cackling of my neighbors chickens that wander into my yard every day. At first I could only hear them, but then I saw one outside a window. He was covered in hundreds of bees and I couldn't even see his head, it was just a big ball of bees. It was a grotesque site as he stumbled around slowly, being stung over and over again until he eventually fellover dead. The bees stayed on him for about 15 more minutes and then left behind a lifeless bird with a swollen deformed face. I heard some more chickens, but I had seen enough. I laid in my bed and stared at the ceiling wondering if this was a bad dream and when it was going to end. A short while later I couldn't hear any more chickens and I realized how quiet it was. Usually from my bedroom I can hear birds in the trees, chickens in the yard, Tupo barking at chickens, neighbors chatting and always the sound of the river. But now all that I could hear amidst the silence, was a loud eerie buzzing. It was just like those horror movies that I loved to watch on TV as a kid, but his was no movie. I was trapped in my house by bees, and the army (especially the Tanzanian Army) wasn't gonna show up with some high frequency sound device to drive them away. I tried to remember everything that I could about the "killer bees" that have invaded the southern United States. I knew that their scientific name was "Africanized Honey Bee". Well GREAT, the ones I was dealing with weren't Africanized, they were natives and they seemed pretty pissed off. All I could do was sit and wait. I thought about setting up my mosquito net that I use at night around my bed, but thought if the bees get in the house I'd rather go quick than lay in bed and wait for them to get through my net, too. I did remember something about them being attracted to bright colored clothing and quickly pulled off my yellow t-shirt and put on a navy blue one. I waited and waited and after a few hours the buzzing stopped and the birds started chirping again. I waited some more and it looked like the bees were going away. Eventually, the school security guard and Maria showed up at my door and said the bees were gone. Maria said that they had chased her all the way to her house, a quarter mile away, and that she was stung several times on her head and once above her eye. Her and the security guy wandered around my yard picking up dead chickens and I eventually went outside, too, once I was sure that the coast was clear. Later I found out that someone had hit a beehive with a hoe while working in their garden just up the hill from my house and that's what started the mayhem. I never heard what happened to the poor guy with the hoe, but I'm sure I would have heard if he was seriously hurt or killed. I was also told that they burned the beehive (maybe that added to the chaos), so I should be safe for now.

I was never too crazy about insects and my family still teases me about being afraid of bugs when I was a kid, but I'll admit that since this incident happened I jump even if a fly is buzzing around me. So, for the time being, I have one can of DOOM next to my bed and another can in the living room. It never hurts to be prepared.