Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Things that go bump, thump and poop in the night

I didn’t sleep very well on my recent trip to the capital. Two nights there, on business and modest pleasure, I struggled through restless nights at both La Pensión, the designated Peace Corps plop spot, and my old host family’s house. Returning to my site Friday, I enjoyed what I’ve come to consider decent sleep on my dilapidated mattress. Up at 830 Saturday, I’d spend about nine hours cloistered in my project site, immersed in its computers.

So Saturday night I get home, and I’m ready for bed. At around 1100, as I settle in under my mosquito net, laptop poised for some last-minute computer action, I catch a faint smell of urine. Looking around, I notice something brown and circular, about the thickness and diameter of a nickel. I flick it off my bed, onto the floor. Smell my fingertips. Yep, that’s definitely animal excrement. Of what animal, I don’t know. A bird maybe? I’ve seen one or two flying through the house. My scatology skills being unfit for the task of identification, I duly wipe it up, telling host mom that I found caca de pájaro on my bed. You know, just an FYI.

Maybe 15 minutes later, I’m killing mosquitos that have infiltrated my mosquito net. Not uncommon, since they have infested this house and this barrio—hence the Dengue. It´s unhelpful that I also don’t fully tuck my mosquito net in. Host mom sees me clapping and smashing, and starts tucking in the mosquito net on the side opposite the wall, where it hangs loosely on the floor. Sleep-deprived and upset at a living situation that only deteriorates, I brusquely tell her off, that it’s okay, whatever, the hunt is more for sport than self-protection, that the mosquitos that don’t fall victim to my palms of fury cower in fear instead of biting me.

Lights out, and sleep remains illusory. Cooling breezes had coursed through Las Maras all day long; tonight they’ve died, leaving a suffocating heat in their wake. Now my mind agitates with thoughts of the animal kingdom: who could have left that bit of fecal detritus? Is it still hanging around?

After a few hours of tense sleep, I feel something big and damp on my knee. I scream, barrel-roll off my bed and scramble out from under the net. What the hell was that? The electricity is out, my camera battery is discharged, the flashlight on my to-buy list remains there, so I reach back in to my violated sanctuary and snatch my cell phone, my only light source. A cursory—inadequate—examination of the area reveals nothing suspect: no sloths, no worms, no wet birds. I keep a plastic bag for earplugs on my bed; was I rub up against it, and did that cause me to shriek like Freddy or Jason’s next victim?

Casting fear aside—nothing should get in the way of sleep—I cautiously climb back into bed, cursing the bastards that make the lights go out at night. Ear on my cotton-ball-stuffed pillow, I try to think of rainbows, unicorns, pizza…then I hear a light boom, like something falling on the mattress. I don’t move. Ten seconds later, again. The third time, it lands square on my leg. I scurry out of bed—silently.

I go to flip the light switch and voilà, light. And there I see it, near the top of the net: a…something. Before I can identify the creature, it promptly falls again onto the mattress. I yank the net out from underneath the mattress to facilitate its departure. Grabbing my camera, I take the series of pictures below.







The origin of the excrement remains unknown, though later on I did find more evidence of it on my nylon refuge. Unknown too is how Kermit managed to undermine the only really fortified side. On second thought, maybe he came through the open end and crossed over me to the wall, in which case I should’ve heeded host mom and tucked it in.

In the days since, I’ve come to notice more evidence of animality in this house: the five wasp nests hanging from the roof (you can see the biggest of them in that last photo); the line of bustling ants crawling up and down the wall next to the front door; the spider web that spans the length of the kitchen, no more than a few inches above my head. Though the American tightwad in me wants to eradicate these flagrant violations of my domestic sovereignty, PCV-me can only consider them part of the adventure. Ditto for the frog business. Here in the DR, you don’t have to embrace nature’s intrusions, but you won’t get far fighting them.

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