Sunday, August 5, 2018

You're never truly alone...but even more so in Cambodia


Living in a tropical locale almost always means drastically reorienting your relationship to wildlife of all shapes and sizes. After my brief stay in Honduras, I experienced a different meaning to “shared living space”. Not a moment passed that didn’t involve an encounter with an ant, gecko, or cockroach. No space was sacred. No space was safe. Most of the time it felt like it was I who was, in fact, the intruder, and it was their home that was being invaded.

If you’ve kept up with my blog over the years, you know that it was this “insect invasion” that partially factored in to my decision to leave Honduras after only two weeks. The mental and emotional trauma of waking up to walls and floors covered in cockroaches every day was just more than I could take. Now, perhaps this means I am weak and cowardly. Perhaps there are those of you who are not fazed at all by creepy crawlies and welcome their spindly legs scurrying across your countertop or cozying up to you in bed. To you, I have nothing to say. Except perhaps that we need to have a frank discussion about personal boundaries.

I am not an idiot. I knew that in agreeing to come to Cambodia, I was also implicitly agreeing to share my living space once again. But we humans are funny creatures. In spite of negative previous experiences, we somehow manage to convince ourselves, when confronted with another similar situation, that somehow it just won’t be as bad as before. How does that saying go? “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, and expecting different results.” So yes, not an idiot. But definitely insane.

Granted, I had spent time in Malaysia and Thailand and hadn’t encountered any unpleasantness in the numerous hostels I had frequented, so part of me honestly believed that things wouldn’t be as bad as Honduras. And, to be fair, they aren’t. Mainly because I haven’t encountered a single flying cockroach. We do, however, have copious amounts of ants, several of whom have made it into my bed, a swarm of yet-to-be-identified flies, and several geckos. We also spotted a rather large spider on our living room wall this morning. But still, all of these things I could live with (though gingerly). The thing that has pushed me over the edge and given me endless anxiety is this guy:

Image result for tokay gecko

In Cambodia, these lovely specimens go by the name “tokkae” (pronounced TOH-kay), and in addition to looking thoroughly unnerving, they also produce an ear-grating screech to ensure that your encounter with them is an unpleasant one.

I first came across one in our shower. Mercifully, I was not in the shower at the time. (I had simply poked my head around the partition to see how our fly population was faring that day.) Its sudden appearance in our shower literally took my breath away. I cautiously backed out of the bathroom and informed Kim that we had a brand new visitor, and no, this was not another cute gecko, but a beast of a whole different caliber.

Thankfully, a little later that day when I poked my head back around the shower partition, our tokkae had vanished. By this time, I had realized that the six squares in our shower wall that opened directly to the outside needed to be remedied, and quickly. Otherwise, we were going to have an endless parade of other guests marching around our apartment. And let’s be honest, the bathroom is the worst place to entertain wildlife. You’re most likely either naked or on the toilet and in no position to defend yourself well.

My plans to shore up our shower wall didn’t happen fast enough, however, because while I was taking care of business later that afternoon, I happened to glance up and there, right at the top of the wall, another brightly colored tokkae gleamed back at me. My eyes never left its wriggling body as I finished up and scurried out the door. This was getting out of hand quickly.

I reasoned that as long as I could keep said tokkae out of my bedroom, I could at least seek refugee there when it all just proved to be too much. Both Kim and I made sure to close our bedroom doors while we went to take care of pre-camp planning with some of the faculty and staff.  After a few hours of work and dinner, we headed back to the apartment, exhausted. It was only Day 2 and our jet lag was still in high gear.

I opened my bedroom door, tossed my backpack on my bed, and nearly choked on my heart which had relocated to my throat. There, on MY BEDROOM WALL was the tokkae!! This was too much. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep with that thing glowering at me with its beady eyes all night. Just, no. No, no, no. I considered for a moment how I could tactfully excuse myself from boot camp and hop on the first US-bound plane. Then I rushed to the kitchen, grabbed the broom, and prepared to wage war. The plan was to guide this tokkae out of my room (and hopefully back into the bathroom and out the window). But instead, he ended up darting into the space between the wall and my wardrobe.

At this point, it was clear reinforcements were needed. While I stood on my bed, broom in hand, I instructed Kim to run next door and grab Karen, another LLA faculty member who had naively offered to ask her for anything should we need it. She came right over and, after assessing the situation, headed straight to the science lab to get a giant net. With her skilled coaxing, we were able to capture the tokkae after several attempts and took him back outside. Then we proceeded to remove the netting from the catcher to cover up the openings in our shower.

Though shaken, I felt much better now that the tokkae was gone and all available entry points appeared to have now been sealed. However, I still passed a fitful night, jittery from the encounter and fearing that somewhere in the recesses of my room another tokkae still lurked.

By the morning, though, I was feeling considerably calmer and ready to tackle the first day of camp. What was one silly little lizard after all? I was a grown woman and I could handle it.  I opened my door to head to the bathroom and was immediately greeted by Kim who was already up and showered.

“There’s another tokkae in our bathroom,” she said, by way of greeting. “It’s on top of the door.”

I froze in my doorway. All thoughts of using the toilet instantly replaced by dread. I looked at her and in my head all I could think was: “I’m not freaking out. YOU’RE freaking out. I’m not freaking out, YOU’RE FREAKING OUT!!” How had this happened?!? I thought this situation had been handled. I had just barely regained some sense of inner tranquility and it had instantly been shattered.

I puttered around the kitchen for a moment, delaying the inevitable, silently building up the courage to go brush my teeth. It’s just a lizard, Amanda. Just a lizard. It can’t hurt you. You’re huge, it’s tiny. You got this. You GOT this. All you do is win, win, win no matter what!

I marched down the hallway, DJ Khaled shouting encouragement the whole way, and saw a tiny green head peeking over the top the door. Well, at least this one was noticeably smaller.

I hurried through my morning routine, relieved to be out of the bathroom in under five minutes. Unfortunately, my anxiety was still running amok as I got dressed and it was a struggle to manage a few bites of my granola bar.

Moments later, there was a knock at the door and Karen, the previous night’s savior, was there to announce that breakfast was being served. Kim was quick to inform her that our little apartment had been compromised yet again and Karen sprung into action. She secured another net from the science lab and headed to the bathroom to scoop up the miscreant. Much to our dismay, however, he was nowhere to be found. Karen left the net with us and assured us that she would come back and catch it should it reappear.

And that is currently where the situation stands. Somewhere in our humble abode, a tokkae lurks. I am not foolish enough to think that he took the hint and departed. And so we wait, not knowing when or how or where he will make his presence known.  I wonder how easily one can acquire Xanax here…







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