The following is dedicated to my older brother, urbanite and faithful author of sometimes political, sometimes personal blog, SPACETROPIC.
A Sunday stroll: A mare munched lazily on grass near her sleeping new born. Kids (the baby goat not the baby human) literally bounced gaily two and fro – as one might imagine they would do on a fair springtime day. One older female goat attempted to climb a tree and got stuck on the first knot near the bottom. She looked left, right and baffled – then, vexed, she bleated at her predicament. I rounded a corner and saw two piglets, covered in mystery slime, happily nosing the ground, looking for grub. They looked perturbed by my presence and would have inched closer for inspection if I hadn’t scooted away. In the not too far distance, a cow mooed – alerting me to her presence and her present activity, which… smelled. I plodded on to my destination, a natural well, overgrown with bird-filled bamboo groves and thick vegetation, perfect for snacks.
The wild kingdom doesn’t really acknowledge the imaginary boundary created by some brick, mortar, and few screens. My apartment, in the second story of a community-style house, allows me to be very close with nature on a 24-7 basis.There is a small army of piss-ants in my clothes bureau. A little parade of the same march down the clay-brick wall next to my bed – a straggler or two ending up on my bathrobe and pillow. While in town yesterday afternoon, a stow-away crawled out from my shirt and explored my neck before I noticed it tickling... and squished it.
On Saturday, a devilish looking spider – not the large scary kind that hang out on ceilings, eat lots of mosquitoes and look as though they could be caged for pets but the small, fat, short-legged kind that look as though one tinsy bite might kill you – sat amicably on the lip of my bed spread where it jumped from its roosting perch on the window sill. Sadly, the grey thing died a swift death under the sole of my leather flip-flop.
At night – every night, dumb brown beetles careen from out of nowhere into my big head of hair, as I sit reading under a light. Their sticky legs cause them to catch in the curls. Only later, when rearranging the ‘do or throwing a massive tangle into a ponytail, do I feel something creep between my fingers. I have learned that a calm and gentle grasp is required to extract them without damage (and in order to not further gross myself out).
Several other members of the beetle family crowd the corners of my room. During daylight hours, they fight for attention with loud and lazy bumble bees and sharp, evil looking hornets that somehow appear and get lost chez-Portia only to foolishly attempt to exit through barricaded windows.
Really, I must not forget the physiological genius of the insect family: The cockroach. Word on the street is that the kinds in Madagascar and Micronesia are the size of my foot and can hiss… but I think I will settle for that boring old Haitian three-incher. Living up to their reputation for survival, the suckers survive full minutes after a blast of lethal insecticide and spastically flop around into faces, laps and lunches.
Creepy crawly fun doesn’t end there.
During a weekend farewell dinner for one of our departing volunteers, Templeton the Rat’s cute, white-bellied cousin decided to scamper over and join the festivities. He slithered out of the restaurant’s thatched roofing and onto the rafters of the metal overhang. After a brief but noted appearance, he was gone – sadly depriving us of his prolonged presence at the impromptu party.
I share these happy thoughts with you for several reasons. One: witness the metamorphosis. Before my move to Haiti, I would holler at a house-mate to come kill an intruding silver fish (which we have lots of here too) let alone to attack a terrifying, cob-web-making arachnid. Two: a retaliation. My older brother recently blogged about his undeniable inner-urban core and his distaste for ticks and hybrid wolf-dogs etc. I had promised to rebutt with some of realities of my life here, showing how my undeniable inner-urban core is slowly being tortured to death.
Pass me the corncob pipe, grandpa!
(Faint sounds of banjos playing)
Fresh rabbit stew for dinner!
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