Man of Nature

There are now 115 African sixth-graders who think I am the funniest person alive. And all it took was turning the greater-than sign into a crocodile. I keep forgetting that there is no cable television here.

School is going very well. Admittedly, the first couple weeks of class were incredibly boring. I even started to get bored at the sound of my own voice. Honestly, I was afraid to be the least bit entertaining or let the kids have even have a little fun. There are 115 of them! I figured they would eat me alive at my first show of leniency. But I’ve eased up a bit, and there haven’t been any belligerent student uprisings yet, so I think things are going to go just fine.

I really lucked out with the guys I get to work with at the school. There are five of us- the director (like the principal), the surveillant (like the vice principal, the discipline guy), the econome (the money man), and then one teacher plus me. Just real good guys. Most of them are the only members of their families with real substantial incomes, and they provide not only for their immediate family, but for the families of their brothers and cousins as well. That’s just the way it is here- you look out for your family. It’s very admirable. But don’t get any ideas, Jeremy and Shane; I love you very much, but I expect you both to have jobs by the time I get home.

Last week, all the teachers and school administrators across the country took Wednesday and Thursday off, striking for a 25% increase in wages. Except for us here in Bomborokuy. We literally did not get the memo. We only found out about the strike on Thursday afternoon. Apparently, there were a few reports of the strike on the radio that all my coworkers missed and a notice that had been sent to them a few weeks earlier that they never received. Oh well. I hear the strike went well even without the critical support of the five of us here way out here in the African bush. Though it’s unlikely, I certainly hope they get the raise. Of course, my pay will stay the same. I don’t think raising my seven dollar a day living allowance is at the top of George Bush’s to-do list.

Next month, Burkina Faso will hold its presidential election. I’m interested to see how that goes. Unfortunately, I can’t say anything more about that because discussing Burkina politics is one of the big Peace Corps no-no’s. Sorry.

Instead, let’s move on to a little Man vs. Nature Trivia:

Which of the following strange animal encounters did I NOT experience in the past two weeks?

(a) A donkey walked in on me as I was giving myself a bucket bath.
(b) I went on a murderous rampage, killing four bats, a mouse, and a scorpion about 2.5 inches long- all which I found inside my house.
(c) A bird pooped on me one morning as I was walking to class.
(d) I became distracted while writing out the prime factorization of 60 by two flies who were being intimate on my chalkboard.
(e) A rooster laid an egg right outside the front door to my house.

Well, I’ll tell you right now: The answer is not (b). That absolutely did happen. An abbreviated excerpt from a journal entry recorded shortly after that terrifying day:

WARNING: The following content may be disturbing for small children and for those of you who, like me, have a thing with bats.


On October 8, 2005, I turned 23.

On October 9, I became a man.

It was a Sunday morning and I had just biked back to Bombo from Nouna. My neighbors had already started working on my house- closing up all the holes in the outside walls and waterproofing it with a coat of banco (basically semi-waterproof mud). I opened my front door. I swallowed hard.

There, in the entryway to my house, lay two bats, still alive, but obviously sick and weakened. A fear that had momentarily flitted through my head on my way to Nouna two days earlier had come true: The bats were living IN my walls. By sealing the holes on the outside of my house, my neighbors had actually trapped all the bats inside.

I was terrified, but I had to think fast. I grabbed a big stick. With the same sickeningly detached ruthlessness I had seen my neighbor exhibit doing this same thing last week, I stabbed the bat on the left in the skull and twisted until I was sure the limp body had absolutely no life left in it. Of course, the bat on the right didn’t just stick around and wait its turn- it scurried off. The fact that it didn’t fly told me it was weak and hungry after being trapped in my house one or two days. That meant that despite my near-paralyzing fear, I had a chance. In my search for the renegade “bat on the right,” I came across another little beady-eyed beast under my cot. It is quite possible that this one was already dead, but I stabbed at its motionless head all the same. Within minutes, the “bat on the right” let out a little squeal from across the room. It would be his last. I tracked him down and disposed of him with the same brutal efficiency that characterized my first two kills.

Josh: 3
Bats: 0

Physically and psychologically exhausted, I enlisted the help of my neighbors to search out the rest. That led to two more enemy kills.

That night, sleep was near impossible. Though we had searched every corner of the house, I had very little confidence in the idea that we managed to get them all. Sure enough, long after the car battery-powered fluorescent light was spent, my flashlight caught a little critter scurrying near the door. I grabbed for one of my sandals and with a shriek the bat opened his wings. It got about a meter off the ground before I smacked it down and was beating it with my Teva. I kicked it out the door into my courtyard. The next day, it was covered with ants which had successfully eaten away most of the scalp, exposing a bloodied skull.

Needless to say, I’ve been a bit jumpy for the past few days, especially at night. It turns out there is at least one mouse in my house; my first attempts to rid myself of it have been unsuccessful. Also, the handful of lizards in my house have been torture on the nerves- every time I hear them shuffling about at night, I flick on my flashlight and raise my trusty sandal in the air. So, yeah, I haven’t gotten much sleep this week.

I think I’m going to start sleeping outside in my tent.


Well, in the end, I got that mouse and I also took care of a good-sized scorpion. But I have to say, those first few bat kills will stick with me for the rest of my life. Anyone know a good therapist?

I miss you all. Thanks to all for your emails, letters, and packages. Except for the one of you who sent that awful email where you click on something and a bat jumps out at you. That’s just not funny.

Regards,
josh

And, of course, the answer to trivia is (e). Roosters don’t lay eggs.