Roommates, Guests, and Loiterers

“But Rowan, I thought you lived alone!” Oh yes, much to the befuddlement of my town, who very kindly tried to make me have some kids sleep at my house my first week or so at site, in case I got lonely. But living alone doesn’t take into account the many kinds of animal life in and around my house, some of it welcome, and some of it definitely not.

Geckos--my favorite roommates. They chortle to each other at night and eat the ants, though unfortunately not enough of them.

Ants--I hate ants. Yesterday morning I went to grab some Vache Qui Rit from my shelves--it’s a processed soft cheese that doesn’t need refrigeration. It comes in sealed aluminum packets, and the ants had not only gotten into the plastic bag I kept the packets in, but had eaten a hole into the metal wrapping and had carried away half the cheese. Overnight. Before you get any ideas about my cleanliness, I should mention that I keep everything in plastic and wipe the tables down with bleach water. They still invade.

Cockroaches--I’m happy to say that there are fewer of these than when I first moved in, and the ones I find are smaller--I guess I killed or evicted the parents? I don’t know what it is about cockroaches that humans hate so much--how fast they move? Their evil little antennae?--but they are nasty.

Mosquitoes--I’ve been planting citronelle and tomatoes around my house, as the scent is supposed to discourage mosquitoes. The citronelle also make a yummy tea when you boil it.

Spiders--The daddy-longlegs type I gently evict with a broom, but the big nasty ones I smash. Last week I spent about 10 minutes chasing a granddaddy around with my hiking boot, and was eventually successful in Operation: Arachnid Death. Now you know how I spend my time.

Scorpions--Small and nocturnal, so happily our paths don’t cross much.

Centipedes--There’s only been one so far, which stung me on the foot while I was walking across my kitchen floor. Not to be confused with millipedes, which are much larger and which I REALLY don’t want crawling across my floor. Happily, none so far.

The Mouse--I had a small and incredibly stupid mouse move in for about a week awhile ago, then abruptly move out. While it was living with me, it managed to eat nothing and ran into walls whenever it saw me.

The Rat--is now dead, I think. I hope. It's given me a lot of sewing practice, though, as it gnawed small holes in about 6 pieces of clothing.

Dogs--I’ve already mentioned Malagasies’ attitude toward dogs. I think my compost pile may be the neighborhood dogs’ main source of nutrition. Like dogs everywhere, they enjoy barking at noises, chasing chickens, and getting into fights at four in the morning.

Cows--People in the neighborhood had stopped posting their cows in my yard for awhile--they’re not supposed to--but I returned home the other day to a bull in my yard. I don’t mind much--they’re pretty quiet--but they get tangled up in the bushes sometimes and I have to drag them out by their nose ropes to stop them from bellowing.

Chickens--I am God’s gift to chickens. Not only do I have a fabulous compost pile, but I unintentionally spill a generous amount when I throw rice (to get rid

of the hulls), AND I don’t throw sticks at them to keep them away from said rice. They stalk across my grass like velociraptors, reflexes honed by years of flying sticks, and make me paranoid because I think the grass is being rustled by kids trying to sneak up to my window. I do occasionally surprise one of them when I toss dishwater out my window, mostly by accident--I’ve been entertained several times by shrieking wet flying bundles of feathers scooting away. Roosters here say cocorico, rather than cock-a-doodle-doo.

Ducks--It is, I have decided, absolutely impossible to look at a duck and be glum. Try it sometime. Really, one of the most ridiculous animals. According to Gasies, they say “draka draka”--rather than quack quack.

Pigs--My neighbors now have two enormous pigs that spend their days rooting in the grass ten feet from my door.

Too good for my yard:
Geese--the Gasies rather creatively call them “big ducks”--gana be.
Turkeys--there’s a flock (herd?) of them at the other end of town. The Gasy name for them is kolokoloko (say that out loud for full onomatopoeic effect--Os are pronounced ooh in Malagasy).

Back in the Great Rainy North

Back in the Great Rainy North (people may not complain about Seattle weather in my presence ever again). I’m getting into the swing of egging on community projects again, but was decidedly grumpy my first few days back because, among other things: my gas tank ran out the night I got back so I had to return to the city immediately to get more; I evacuated 19 spiders from my house; a rat moved into my house in my absence, and since I had prudently left no food out, had some fun munching on my soap; some of the neighbors, apparently having decided that I had moved out, went back to posting their cows in their yard, knocking holes in my fence to do so; the cows knocked more holes in my fence; the neighbors got a new pig who got loose my first day back and went galloping though my yard and—wait for it—through my fence, creating another hole, in order to investigate my compost pile; and it rained off and on for 6 days after I got back.

Lovely.

I grumbled to myself for a few days and silently fumed at people for demanding gifts (if you’re rich enough to go to the capital, you’re rich enough to bring presents back for everyone you have ever met, I guess). Then I reluctantly got up the energy to mend the fence, hire my first helper to mow my overgrown yard (with a machete and 6 children), and—do I want to admit this? OK—invent a new game I like to call Rat Bowling.

I usually retreat under my mosquito net at about 7pm to read with my solar light, listen to podcasts, and (when I have battery) watch movies on my recently-arrived netbook. The rat starts getting active about 8, and once it gets cheekily noisy, I retaliate from the safe perch of a chair in the doorway by sliding or rolling objects across my kitchen floor to slam up against whatever it’s hiding behind. Noise in the shelves? There goes the inflatable beach ball (Thanks for the gift, Kas!) Rustling behind the buckets? Bam! Goes my laundry detergent. You think my work basket will provide coverage? This lofted bottle of ibuprofen says no.

I guess I hoped this would be a humane way of evicting the annoying not-so-little animal, but it’s also entertaining. Alas, no sign of it vacating, so I’ll be looking for a rat trap this afternoon. Some animals I do not live in harmony with—cockroaches and rats are among them.

Anyway, other than that, things in my town are pretty much the same. One of the neighbors has yet to fix the roof of his (outdoor) kitchen, which caved in two months ago. About half a dozen babies were born in my almost-monthlong absence—yes, just in my little 1000+ person town. Most will be loved well, clothed and nourished poorly, get an elementary-level education, and lose a few teeth by their mid-20s.

At some point in the last few months it must have gotten around that I was a minor expert in foreign currency, because 3 or 4 people have stopped by to have me look at money from abroad—a lot of the clothing here is shipped second-hand from developed countries, and people find random items from abroad in the pockets pretty frequently. In the last few months I’ve been asked to look at and explain paper money from Korea and China and an old-style lira coin from Italy. Two days ago a toothless old man wandered into my kitchen, plopped down in a chair, and pulled out some19th-century French coins, one of which was from 1854 and had the picture of Bonaparte III on it. I’m a bit of a coin collector myself, so I was tempted to make an offer for it, but I have no idea what a fair price would be and anyway, he said he had inherited them from his grandfather. Judging by his age, I think the coins were brand-spanking new when his granddad got them.

I have no idea why he was showing them to me—perhaps he thought they would make me feel at home. People still think I’m French even after I tell them I’m American. Despite peoples’ fascination with “the foreigner”, they neglect the basics to an astonishing degree. I’ve done the introduction of where I’m from to my English club several times, and even THEY think I’m French. You’d think my crappy French would tip them off. I keep having people stop by to ask for private French tutoring and I respond—that’d be great! I really need it.

A few more episodes from my weird life. My neighbor was whistling the country/bluegrass song “(When You Say) Nothing At All” this morning while he was chopping brush with everyone’s favorite accessory, a machete. The people here love their country music. I worked in the MBG office for a while yesterday and one of my colleagues was alternately listening to Dolly Parton and Norah Jones on his computer. Every once in awhile their singing would be interrupted by a screaming chicken as he chased it out of the room and back into the yard. When I was getting water this morning, the neighbors showed me what they were harvesting for lunch—handfuls of hundreds of squirming inch-long beetles, good fried I guess. (Hey, children who are actually getting protein!) And yesterday afternoon a dude in a polar fleece fez marched into my kitchen, plopped his duck down on the floor, and proceeded to toss dried corn nibs for the duck to catch mid-air. Maybe he wants me to set up a business deal with Barnum and Bailey’s? The teen girl who was drawing at my kitchen table rolled her eyes after he left and muttered, “Crazy guy.”

So there you go, the reports have resumed from Dodge. Until next time, stay crazy.—R