Critter Entry Part 1: Outsmart the Popos

A thought occurred to me the other day while entering my quest bedroom. As I opened the door and a scorpion (1) fell onto my arm, I realized that I should write a blog entry about my run-ins with animals here in Tanzania.

It’s my understanding that the “critter story” is a quintessential part of PCV canon so, like every volunteer since 1961, it’s time for me to load up the artillery and fire away. A “critter story” is almost always best saved for the FAFBH (Friends and Family Back Home): tell your fellow volunteers and someone’s likely to steal your thunder with a story about a spitting cobra in their living room; tell a Tanzanian and they’ll likely just smile and nod. Your WILD (!!!) story about chasing camel spiders in the nude with an A level textbook and bug spray is probably, to a Tanzanian, like watching Chinese tourists rub their babies on John Harvard’s golden toe (2): it’s embarrassing so you pity them, but not enough to interrupt and give up your smug sense of superiority.

To begin, let us talk about bats or popo. In a country facing endemic malaria, I can’t think of a nicer animal. Popo fly around eating disease vectors and do it when you’re sleeping. They don’t need your wakeful approval; they’re too busy being solid dudes and dudettes. For me, this assessment changed the instant a bat flew into my hair. In such a situation, I did the only two sensible things a person could do: throw a hard drive as far as I could down a hallway and make what was a hero's call if I've ever heard one. I believe I said, “daffffFFFUUUUCCCRRRGGGGSSSHHHH^{YYYYEEEEEEEEEERRRRRR}AAAAAAAAAA!” Fortunately, the bat was not tangled in my hair.

Unfortunately, it flew into my bedroom, defiling what had been up to that point the one vermin free sanctuary in my house. Grabbing my broom, I said to no one in particular, “It’s simple, we kill the bat!”Had The Dark Knight not taught me anything about their resiliency? Despite a rather thorough drubbing, the intruder managed to scuttle and flap its way into hiding, hanging on to what seemed its last breaths. I had lost a dying bat in my bedroom.

Waking up next to a stranger is unpleasant. It's a lot more unpleasant if he or she is, in fact, a bat. Like a true procrastinator, I decided to save my problem for the following day and was displeased that my friend had chosen the mosquito net trussing above my head as an ideal roost. Like gentlemen, we each illustrated our conflicting points of view, philosophical and logical arguments were proposed, and, upon reaching an amiable agreement, he left out the front door as I cordially waved goodbye with my broom.

After shampooing my hair for the first time in over two months and locating all the holes in my ceiling, I resolved to have my house bat proofed and never relive that unpleasant evening. Of course, as with anything I set my mind to, I forgot about it the next day. Waking up two days later, I noticed a leaf floating in my water filter. Reassessments were made once I leaned in for a closer look and the leaf looked right back. It was not a leaf; a bat was clinging for dear life to my water filter. Now, I have been kind to animals my whole life, going out of my way to do no harm and spare pain in creatures with a conscious that is either simpler or completely alien to my own. However, in the moment before propelling that shivering, sodden bat into a smoldering trash pit, I looked it in its puggy little face and beady black eyes and said “I truly hate you.” It was promptly drawn apart by chickens.

I'll leave you, fair reader, with a "critter story" from a pit latrine. Struggling to position myself so that anyone’s abrupt entry would be blocked by my unseen body, while also urinating into a hole the size of a large mango, I noticed something shuffle along the wall. I refocused my attention to see a spider, so large it would be incapable of fitting in my open palm, slowly backing itself into a corner. Under my cautious gaze, it began coiling and preparing to pounce on and bite, what must surely have been, the first white penis it had ever seen.

It would be impossible to express everything I'm thankful for, so I guess I'll have to leave it at life, people, and memories. Also, that a mouse sized spider did not attack my manhood. Happy Thanksgiving! I miss and love you all :)

(1) Haters gonna hate the footnote but some things need to be said about scorpions. After spending my childhood memorizing the misleadingly named pop-up book, “Nature’s Deadly Creatures,” (shout out to blue ringed octopuses and my dearest mother), I was a little disappointed that my scorpions are not, in fact, capable of killing a human. This letdown of childhood innocence, which I’m sure is a great word in German, is slightly assuaged every time I kill a scorpion, remove its tail, and either bury it or flush it down your choo hole.  It may be dead , but it’s still capable of stinging. So scorpions, I salute you. Even if you are incapable of killing me you are still significant enough to require a funeral.

(2) The students pee on it.