Where is modimo, the red mite?

Not so long ago, after some days of rain, crude circles and crosses would be found all over the ground, in and out of yards, signs of children's reverence for the mites.  The reverence came from their elders' directions that when one finds a "modimo", one has to draw a cross and a circle around it. 

"We grew up being told that it was 'modimo'. I don't really know why it's called that," Serowe-born grandmother Gababantsi Refakae remembers. Perhaps the mite was named thus as a preservation measure, with the hope that if it was given godly qualities, children would not harm it. Dr Pharoah Mosupi, director of Agriculture Research at the Botswana College of Agriculture thinks that the name may have to do with the fact that the mites only appear after a rainy period.