In the Philippines, our group made two different kinds of friends. The first kind of friends were of the human variety. We enjoyed these friends very much and were blessed by them on a daily basis. The second type of friend were of the creature variety. These friends were less welcome and much less liked. Top creature friends included: geckos, flies (in droves), mosquitos (only saw a handful of these, thank goodness), and, finally, the most loathed of all: the cockroach. I had never encountered cockroaches (to the best of my knowledge) before Manila. They made up for lost time and introduced them to me on a number of occasions. Their appearance was generally marked with stifled screams, leaps onto furniture, or a sudden departure from the immediate vicinity. I don't care that cockroaches don't bite; their presence is about as welcome as a snake showing up at a rodent convention. I also don't care how cute the cockroach was in WALL-E. It's like saying you want a rat as a chef after watching Ratatouille.
Our first night at Mango, we encountered a little intrusion of cockroaches in the kitchen when we got a drink of water before going to bed. Craig Burrows remarked: "You know you've been in the Philippines too long when you can step on a cockroach bare foot." The thought nearly made me gag. We met up with many more cockroaches while painting Cashew. The worst was when we were painting the library and a cockroach was hanging out above the doorway close to the ceiling. We managed to leave it alone (and it us) until it came time to painting right above the door. Our resident exterminator, Graham, (as it was me, Jess, and Caroline in the room and it was anyone's guess which of us 3 were more terrified of the roach) knocked it to the ground using a scraper than smashed it with an impressive kamikaze leap from a chair. If he had just left it at that, he would have been hero. Sadly, he chose to scoop the roach up onto the scraper and advance towards Caroline. This lost him all hero points in my eyes, particularly when he left Caroline alone and started my way.
We had a few visits from geckos as well. Those are cool little creatures. They're lightening fast and can scale anything and everything. They also get in the way when you're trying to paint and choose to walk through the fresh coat of paint you have just applied to the wall. *sigh* Thank goodness they were fast so you could patch up the little prints before the paint dried funny.
I was quite thankful to return to England and not have to worry about roaches. It's a load off my already taxed mind.
Kristen
Graham killing the cockroach:
Not overly fond of the cockroach but the geicko is quite cute :)
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