Midnight Suprise

As most people who have traveled will tell you, its all about flexibility. Sort of like a microcausm of life overall, and generally that means what you expect out of life going constantly awry. Especially when you live in a third world country, every morning is a new roll of the dice. It’s soon you learn that your guts bring you far, but that they only show you the way so you can lose your way. And from there, your only hope is those who will stop for a moment in the heat and help you alongside of a long and dusty road. Get your work done while the power is on. Be as useful as you can when you are needed, because most of the time you aren’t. Enjoy a breeze as you would a very large bonus - with triumph you know cannot last and thus not worth worrying once its spent.

We live in a small room in the school founder’s home with our friends Sylvie and Ian. It has two twin beds and is in the rain shadow of the house, tucked away from the hot breeze coming off of the sea.  Its surprising how fast our fickle bodies forgot the iron chill of new york when we left and got straight to lamenting and carrying on to us about the unforgiving heat--only letting us wring out from the sweat in thin dreams between sleeping and waking. But we adjusted quickly with the help of our new friends and it amazed us how long just a few days felt as they boiled off one by one. I liked to think of it as summer camp. Except we were the only ones who could fly home after a  few months had past.

One night as we all lay dreaming sweetly on our soupy foam mattresses, just around 5am, a flying cockroach roughly the size of Texas landed on Sylvie’s arm. She gasped only slightly and shot up in bed, and after just a small ruckus we reached a sleepy consensus not to turn on the lights - that this was most likely a rogue roach that simply lost his way and most certainly not an assault on our little American camp. More than rattled, I lay in the dark attempting to convince my mind to relax and not loose its head. This was Africa after all. Calm down and go back to sleep, you ridiculous girl. A hiccup, a fluke, an nonpoisonous wrinkle in the fabric of your trip. For God’s sake, chill out and go back to sleep!

Right around the part where I was counting my breaths and forcing my way into meditation, a roach arguably the size of Oklahoma (or certainly Kansas at best) flew onto my cheek with a flutter of its huge papery wings. By my estimation, it took me approximately one fourth of a second to be on my feet on the bed, whimpering and carrying on like an old lady. We were under siege! The lights came on and these unnaturally overgrown, inky brown, wiggling roaches seemed to be perched on every wall, flanking our small beds and ready to run us right out of town.

Ian killed the few we could see with a flip flop and we had no choice but to settle back down to sleep, leaving the lights on. Something had to be done. We’d been sleeping without mosquito nets in order to let in the thin breeze from the ceiling fan. But between the mosquito bites and now the brigade of cockroaches, the nets went back up. I had stupidly ordered Scott and I single nets from REI, thinking we would be in dorm beds. Silly me. The nets were small for even one person, and draped hot mesh all over your head all night. We figured we manage with one. And as we all settled in to bed the following evening into the nuclear night air, scott and I realized how grossly we had underestimated this set up. The net was inches from our face and draped heavy and black over our bodies - not much good for preventing bites. Not only that, but as we squeezed in close together, the net had a greenhouse effect and I thought for sure we would smother each other to death in the heat. As we lay there panting like hot dogs on the grill, it was one o those moments when you were deciding whether to laugh or cry. I chose the former and pretty soon I was in stitches with giggling. What a hilarious, silly sight! All laughing aside, we barely made it through the night with only our pure and unabashed dislike for large cockroaches to keep us from jumping ship and tearing down the net for a breath of fresh air. It was the longest I’ve ever held my breath - for a whole nine hours! Judging from the cool, collected and capable travellers that surround us, its unclear if we were really cut out for this. Two sweaty, plucky city kids want to go on holiday in an African village and end up sweating bullets and holding in travellers diarrhea huddled under a single mosquito net to escape some night roaches. I don’t have to be African to find that just totally, friggin hilarious.