It is a known norm in the Makerere University academic calendar to include a recess term mainly for students doing Science based courses; who whenever they have no internship, stay at the university to catch up on the syllabus while the rest of the students are on holiday.
Usually, the university closes all the halls of residence except for two boys’ halls and one girls’ hall to accommodate government sponsored students. This year, recess students are residing in Mitchell Hall and University Hall for boys while the girls are tucked away in Africa Hall.
However, all is not well for the students as bedbugs in Mitchell Hall are about to such them dry of their precious blood. Sam, a medical student in Mitchell Hall has cried out against the chemical and hot water resistant parasites that are giving him sleepless nights.
“I have been a hostel dweller but for this recess, I decided to try out hall because I felt like having the hall experience before I leave Makerere and I have really had it”, he sarcastically told our reporter.
Sam claims that the parasites don’t die unless you capture one with your hands and burst it open and really see that it has died. He claims that he has used watery chemical, powder chemical and hot boiled water to kill them but they have refused to die.
“There are those young ones that bite you and you immediately check the bitten part but cannot see them. They are fast as lightening yet sting so harshly. The day I catch one, I want to burn it with a match stick”, he said.
Makerere University halls of residence have for long been with the challenge of bedbugs generation after generation. Even alumni claim that in their times, their parents would not allow them to immediately take their belongings inside the house for fear of these parasites. They would first be paraded outside for a good number of days.
Campus Bee has learnt that Hall authorities are always given chemicals to spray the against the bugs every beginning of the semester but the challenge of bedbugs still remains unsolved.
