March 30, 2004

So, about an hour ago, I was sitting on my bed, playing with my laptop, when this strange looking bug flew in. It looks sort of like a dragonfly with a smaller body but very large wings. Being kind-hearted, I didn’t want to kill it. Instead, I gently shooed it out the door and went back to what I was doing. A few seconds later, it was there again. Hrmph. I got back up and shooed it out. But there it was again. I thought it must be attracted to the light, so I opened my door to turn on the porch light as a distraction, when I noticed a swarm of these things was gathered outside. I shut the door quickly, but by then a dozen or more had made their way in, and more were pouring through the cracks. OK, well, pouring might be an exaggeration. But it wasn’t too far off from a horror movie.

I couldn’t see the point in killing them all, or any for that matter, so instead, I got under my mosquito net and hung out watching them dive bomb the sides. Unfortunately, the urge to pee was upon me, and the situation didn’t appear to be getting better. I finally mustered up my courage and made a run for the bathroom (which in this apartment is about 3 feet from my bed). When I came back out, I decided to survey the damage before turning out the lights.

As near as I can tell, these bugs are shedding their wings. I’m not sure what the purpose is. I only know that my floor is now covered with wings and crawling bugs. I’ve been texting Deb and Allison, and Deb thinks these are the type that will be dead by morning. So I’m just going to pray I can hold my water until then! As for tomorrow, I’m buying some Doom!

March 31, 2004

It was a long and restless night. I woke around 5 and just laid there until it was light and I could summon the courage to survey the damage. Had this happened in the US, I might have packed my bags this morning and found a new place to live. But here, I don’t really think of this apartment as mine anyway. It belongs to the goats, geese, turkeys, and insects as much as it does me. I tend to think of it as an extended camping trip.

The worst of it appeared to be by the door, where the little suckers were either trying to get in or get out. There was a significant pile of wings there. I spent about 30 minutes sweeping it all out. Most of the little bugs were still alive, but struggling. Conservatively, I’d say there were about 50 of them. I had to sweep a couple more times, since they were coming out of their hiding places and reappearing.

May 12, 2004

When Allison was visiting this weekend, I opened my front door to find a turkey sitting on my second-story railing, poised to jump at any moment. This was of great concern to Allison and me, since neither one of us was convinced that turkeys could fly. We decided it was some sick turkey version of “Truth or Dare”. All of his buddies were standing around at the bottom, gobbling away, and probably saying something like, “C’mon. Jump already. What are you, a chicken?!” At long last, presumably after a triple dog dare, the turkey leapt off the railing and miraculously managed to fly down to safety.

I think his jump has become the stuff of legend, because last night, there were no less than five turkeys hanging around my stoop, just staring at the railing in awe. None of them made the same attempt though. Instead, they just walked back down the stairs – after leaving me some presents.

December 20, 2004

Then Ros, Mary, and I walked back to Primetime, or as I like to call it, the crack den. That place gets skeezier every time I stay there. Usually the lights are already out when I come in, so I don’t have to see the place lit up. This time, however, we were sharing a room with four Japanese tourists occupying the top bunks. They had all the lights on, and continued to talk loudly and excitedly long after we laid down for bed. With the room aglow, it was hard to miss the staggering number of roaches crawling on walls, floors, and bedposts. Mary had three circling her head, and just laid there paralyzed with her glasses still on the whole night.

January 8, 2005

The modern world is finally coming to Narok. On Thursday, when I was biking past Kenya National Bank, I did a double take. An ATM machine??? I slowed as I passed, and noted the wires sticking from the back of the terminal. My confidence in the Kenyan work ethic restored, I assumed it would be months before it was actually connected to anything. But the next day as I was walking home, I witnessed a man approach the vestibule and stick his card in the slot. My God! It can’t be! Of course, I haven’t had the chance to try my card yet; I expect it won’t work, and then I can go back to mismanaging my funds and eating nothing but noodles and eggs for a week before my Nairobi visits.

January 27, 2005

As for the mice, I’ve only seen the two, and they haven’t left any droppings or gotten into my food. Still, if it continues, I’ll have to take action. I made this decision after hearing a story from Brad, our PCVL, this week.

Apparently he had mice in his house and let them go. “That’s when I saw the first snake,” he said. “The small one.” It was four feet long. Being unskilled in reptile warfare, he called on a few Kenyan friends. They took care of it for him, but joked that he was not a man. A man should be able to kill a snake. Kenyans, by the way, despise snakes, and will immediately beat them to death no matter their size or harmlessness.

The next time a snake showed up in his house, perched on a high shelf in his kitchen, Brad decided to try dealing with it himself. It didn’t look so big, but after some unsuccessful attempts at getting it to budge, he called on friends again. They suggested throwing cups of kerosene on the snake to get him to move. The first cup just pissed the thing off, but the second one made him drop to the floor. He was 8 feet long.

They somehow managed to get him outside and killed him. It was only later that Brad, flipping through his safari book, realized it was a Black Mamba. After that incident, his friends said he was still a man.

May 18, 2005

Other than that, my time has been spent fighting the Great Caterpillar Infestation of 2005. Have I mentioned these things before? They’re black and fluffy and look like the cutest things until you actually touch one and its hairs poke through your skin like quills and form a painful itchy beard. I accidentally brushed one hiding in my CD case a couple of weeks ago and got severely injured. I tried removing the hairs with Tweezers, but they’re too fine for that. The result is itchy red bumps that last for at least a week.

Every night, several dozen of these make their way into my house. I stand guard in the living room, and do a sweep every 30 minutes or so. I sweep them into a dust pan and throw them out my door, but they always come back. Emma has taken to Dooming them, but it often takes 12 hours or more for them to actually die.

I’m just happy that the 18 Combat traps I brought back seem to have solved my roach problem. Emma is getting the bad end of this, since they’ve migrated to her place. Last night, she came over and requested Erik’s assistance with a 2” roach she’d discovered. It was laying eggs when Erik killed it.

Erik knew this because he and Lynnsie had roaches so bad when they first moved to Rongo that they slept in their tent for 6 weeks. Some of the roaches were small enough to crawl through their mosquito net at night, so they would be sleeping with them.

June 19, 2005

Yesterday, the short-term volunteers arrived in Narok and were giving their first set of presentations to about 200 local students. Frank, Jennifer and Emma all went to town to meet them and listen in. I decided that I would probably not be able to keep my mouth shut about how ridiculous their whole experience is to me and how little good they’re actually doing. So I stayed home.

The talks went pretty much as expected. The volunteers running the HIV sessions had at least done some research on HIV programs in developing nations. They were using a Peace Corps manual, and they did know the latest infection rates in Kenya. But they talked a good deal about transmission through intravenous drug use, which is very uncommon here. And they didn’t know that it could be transmitted during circumcision ceremonies, which is a real danger here because boys at least are circumcised as a group using the same instrument.

Emma sat in on the science talks. The volunteers had brought a lot of equipment with them for experiments. They popped the lid off a film canister by using Alka-Seltzer. Isn’t that original? At least I built a paper rocket around mine before I launched it! Emma also said they used a lot of examples that made her cringe like, “This is a motor like the ones you have in your hair dryers.” Or “This is an LED like the ones in your remote controls.” Typical MIT – can’t imagine a world without gadgets. But guess what? They’re in one now! Since none of the volunteers had any training in speaking Kenyan English, I’m certain that students only understood about 10% of what they were saying anyway.

Emma said she had a hard time keeping quiet too. But both of us feel torn about this. Why is there a hierarchy of volunteerism? Why do we feel like we’re better than them because we chose to give up more of our time? And why do we still feel inferior to or jealous of the people we meet who seem to be working harder or integrating into their communities more? It’s sad, but in all the encounters I’ve had with other volunteers, there is this tendency to one-up the other person. Did you live without electricity? Did you take cold bucket baths? Were you robbed, mugged, stabbed, or shot at? The person with the worst stories to tell wins. It’s so stupid! But I think it has taught me something. Volunteerism is just as self-serving as anything else we do in life. Sure, some people come here because they want to save the world, and all of us make contributions to that effort in our own small way. But most of it is about the adventure, about satisfying your own needs and having some interesting stories to tell when you’re done. There is nothing selfless about my time in Africa, and I know in the end I will come back with far more than I’ve given in terms of knowledge.

August 8, 2005

I came home this evening to an unpleasant surprise. I have a rat living with me. He gnawed on my carrots and then left pellets all over the kitchen and even more disturbing IN MY BED! Ick! I don’t think a mosquito net can keep a rat out unless I do some serious tucking. Frank came in and showed me the place in my ceiling where he’d chewed a hole to get in. Frank has one too.

If I’m going to have a rat, I at least want one with nice manners. I wonder if it’s possible to potty-train him. Scott has a mouse that asks to be let out. At least, that’s what he tells me, but he drinks a lot.

September 2, 2005

I came home yesterday to find a dead rat in my toilet and men’s underwear on my floor. I was more disturbed by the underwear initially until I remembered that I let Kevin and his brothers stay there while I was at the camp. I assume they left them. I’m not actually sure if the thing in my toilet was a rat or not. It appeared to be furry anyway. It flushed on the second attempt, so I never had to investigate.