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:
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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