Malaria and Geckos

In Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), The Bleu/Blanc magazine integrated message of civics, health, scholarship, and conservation. On this page, there are four separate messages, of which the first two are letters to the editor -- "you are the future of the planet" and "don't cheat." The next section is about malaria, a potentially fatal disease, which is transmitted by mosquitoes.

The article suggests that cans that collect water outdoors will permit mosquitoes to breed, and collecting and burying these containers will reduce malaria. The drawing shares the idea that geckos are beneficial because they eat mosquitoes. The geckos are talking about all of the mosquitoes they are eating, in a scene littered with opened food containers.

In the Congolese culture, geckos (and all amphibians and reptiles, besides) are universally hated, and often killed. The lesson that a reptile fits within a food chain that can have a positive effect on humans is one way to change attitudes about animals that are typically seen to be evil.