Today’s word for the day is “zancudo.”

Zancudo is the Spanish word for the stripey tiger mosquito, the one that carries dengue. The news today here in Cali is that the dengue previously confined to the fringes of the metropolitian area is now making serious inroads into the city itself. The health department has trucks spraying in the streets against zancudos and is conducting house-to-house inspections.

Will it make any difference? Some, probably. It’s another reminder, though, that Cali sits lower in the mountains than Medellín and Bogotá, which are spared at least this particular plague.