Into The Warm Heart of Africa: Scorpions, lizards, and rats, oh my! Oh, and spiders too.

In my two months prior to departing for Malawi, I read every Peace Corps blog I could get my hands on. Living in Germany at this time, I woud often read snippets to my mom as we listened to CNN on the TV at her apartment, or enjoyed warming up our toes in a hotel in Brugges, Belgium. Regardless of the environment, they always made for good stories and insight into what I would soon be experiencing myself.

The one I remember the most concerned a gal and the creatures in her house. She seemed to boast about the 12 bugs she had killed in the last week, while standing on top of a chair using a stick she strictly designated for killing unwanted visitors. It left both of us laughing, close to being unable to read it in continuous breaths. I have remembered her story the entire time I’ve been in Malawi and I wondered When would be my time to be standing on a chair taking numerous swipes at a scorpion?

I’ll let you all know that I used to be horrified of spiders. Remember the movie “Arachnophobia”? Yep, that was my nightmare. It’s only been since I’ve been forced to live in the same house as them that I’ve learned to coexist on neutral grounds. Maybe it’s because I can’t see them all the time, unless they proudly spin a web right in the middle of my water filtering system. Maybe it’s because I have 3 cans of DOOM (yes, it really is the end of them) ready and willing to spray when the time comes. Or maybe it’s because I have lizards living on my walls and I know they are on my side. But such things are during the day, so what happens when the lights go out?

There are too many to tell you stories of them all, but I’ll give an overview: I have found one scorpion, a three legged lizard, heard numerous mice, as well as countless cockroaches.

The scorpion was horrifying but simultaneously quite awesome. I will say, though, things through the narrow light of a headlamp makes everything to seem like it’s come out of a horror film. Anyways, I’d never seen one before in real life! To make it more interesting I had never seen one like it. It wasn’t your typical huge bubble tail swathing at whatever enemy it detected. It was a black one, flat body, with huge front pinchers. I had a quick flashback to someone saying “The ones with the big pinchers are the worst.” Of course horror strikes me and I think of what is closest to grab to kill it.

I discovered quite quickly that that flip-flops are one of the best bug smashing machines. #1 reason to always have them on! Chacos, I will tell you, are not the best killing machine. They have a type of waffle pattern on the bottom, thus when you think you’ve conquered your bug he may be slipping away through the cracks! I’ll tell you, I had a mess to clean up in the morning after that one…but at least I didn’t have to worry about him becoming my new bed buddy.

Next one was the three legged lizard. Initially I was freaked out of this guy. Some sort of mutation? It wasn’t as if his leg had been bitten off, it was as if it decided it didn’t want to be an arm anymore and was shriveling up, fingers and all. It was another creature that, once I got past my freak out, I couldn't help but sit and stare in fascination. It looked like he’d gone blind in his right eye, the same side as the I-don’t-want-to-do-it-anymore leg, indicated by it being completely black. Yes yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m a veterinarian now!

In the coming days I kept an eye on him and he didn’t move very far. That’s just the destiny for some creatures out here. You don’t eat, you die. Eventually I think he gave in as I found ants beginning to chew their way through his tough skin. Having a heart and putting him out of his misery, I became fascinated in the following days watching the ants take over his body. Yes, this obsession lasted through my first month at site, where I would sit and watch ants go to town, returning a dead bug or creature to the earth once again. I never had a chance to see the “finished product.” I think the rooster got him.

Ahhh, the mice. Now when you all think of mice I’m sure you think of little fuzzy creatures in a lab spinning on wheels while men in white coats stare on. Well, the ones here are not as small. In fact, they look like they’ve been given steroid shots, easily being able to fill the size of your palm. I’ve never been freaked out of mice or rats, so the shock factor never hit me. Rather, this was a time I wish I had a stick, shovel, or anything designated for killing mice. If only I could catch them.

For weeks I would hear them at night, bustling through papers, plastics, and eating my precious bananas and tomatoes. Little buggers… Honestly, I wouldn’t mind them much in my house if they just hung out and, say, had a beer. But they like to do their business at night, with little regard to who actually lives in the house. I bought traps (those were a joke for the size of the mice here!), set out poison (sorry!), all in hopes of getting rid of these irritating creatures. My patience had run out, I’ll tell you that much.

The first mouse I found actually “caught” himself. I have these large red buckets in my guest room that are intended to be used for hand washing, with a spout on the bottom. Anyways, for nights I could hear one of them in plastic bags, I just didn’t know where exactly. As I did some detective work I found him at the bottom of the bucket. I pulled out my belongings (I would have killed him right then and there if he’d chewed through my beloved hiking boots...but he was off the hook...for now). He jumped wildly, trying to get out, scared of his wits I’m sure. Then he thought he could squeeze his way through the tiny hole at the bottom, and that's when I lost it! All I could do was take the bucket out front on the porch and continue to laugh. “Serves you right!” I told him, has he tried frantically to squeeze his head through the tiny hole at the bottom where a spout would eventually go.

After I’d had my laugh, I transfered him to a smaller bucket and stuck a lid on it. I strapped it to my bike and rode up the road a ways and let him go in a field. I’m still too much of an animal lover to kill a mouse right infront of me. #1 down. #2 ate the poison (I’m sorry!) and fortunately crawled its way out from under the frankenstein red couch (when I still had it). #3 (by this time I had Peter, and didn't want to use poison) I found in the guest room room and in desperation threw a brick at it, finding it two days later dead in my back room behind my laundry buckets. #4 I saw sneak out under a gap in the back door. Done. The next day I nailed plastic stripping near the gap and I think it’s done the trick. Those buggers are too fast for a large stick, anyways.

Cockroaches are, well, cocky, I’d say. They could care less who lives where they want to roam, they’re still going to do their thing. I imagine cartoons of them looking at me with one eye, a cigar hanging from their mouth and saying to me “Whaaat’s ya praaablem?!” Lets just say I’ve shown them who’s boss and they don’t come around much anymore. But I can still hear them hitting the floor at night when they fall from the rafters, knowing I’ll have at least one to sweep up in the morning.

A special note to everyone out there: Dont go spider hunting at night with a headlamp. I tell you, they look bigger, scarier, and look to have multiplied by the hundreds. I learned my lesson pretty quick, and resorted to crawling under my mosquito net, hoping it would do its work protecting me from the spiders I was sure were coming my way.

So, at any rate, I don’t have a stick designated for killing creatures in my house, and have yet to stand on a chair practicing my aim. Instead I resort to whatever pair of shoes I’m wearing, except for Chacos of course. I’ve been known to take a flip flop off and go spider hunting, successful most of the time. DOOM will pick up where I left off at times as well. I suppose after a while all my live-in buddies are not so bad...when I can’t see them. I’m hoping to find another snake in my house so I can freak my mother out again. :) Maybe Peter will be the savior in the story.