When rains descend on southern Africa, especially on those parts where cattle are kept, flies regenerate in numbers intolerable to Western sensibilities. Photographs of these winged invaders of eyes and nostrils, of milk pails and teacups, found in dozens of coffee-table books and television documentaries, faithfully depict this reality of rural African life. In stark contrast, the modern pesticides, drainage projects, and absentee ownership that keep cattle at a respectable rural distance have reduced the fly population or urban centers to insignificance. But the wealth and comfort of the capital metropole and its town satellites have been bought at the price of rural poverty and degradation. The process is centuries old.