Some things that make me realize "I'm not in the States anymore!"
1. Walking out of dinner down the walkway of the church I felt something crawling on my arm. I looked down expecting to see ants. Yes, that's normal here. The freakin' little ants are everywhere, they're climbing in and out of my computer as I type this. Anyway, instead I see a big fat roach. I freak out and shake my arm but it doesn't fall off. I have my waterbottle in that hand and something else in my other so I try to swipe it off but I'm not sure where it crawled because it's dark outside. I end up dropping my metal watterbottle and as it rolls down the cement walkway making all kinds of noise the lid falls off and water goes everywhere. One of the guys sees the roach on the ground and quickly steps on it. I stop jumping and yelling just in time to see the nice Belizeans watching and laughing at me, even the children thought my reaction was funny. Well, at least someone enjoyed it!
2. While we were working out a bat flew in the window. This was not like any bat I've seen before. It was very big and a light gray color. It was circling around the room and we were all ducking and trying to get out of the way. Luckily one of the guys (the other two guys were curled up in the fetal position on the floor) grabbed a shovel and was trying to hit it mid-air as it made it's circle around the room. I went to close all the doors so it wouldn't get into any other rooms in the house and very soon after the bat was taken down, not by a shovel, but by a mop! It was pretty comical and we enjoyed teasing the two guys about how brave they were!
3. The next night myself and one of the other volunteers were up pretty late after everyone else had gone to bed. As we stood at the kitchen counter talking we both saw something furry run along the bottom of the bottom cabinets. In 1 second she was on top of the counter and in 2 seconds I was in the other room. Since it was so late we decided we'd wait and deal with it in the morning. So, the next morning I go to do laundry on the back porch and when I move the washing machine (smaller than those in the states) our little furry friend runs too close to my feet, off the porch on a water pipe and down our stone wall. We look under the washer and discover his wet nasty little home. We cleaned everything up out there and in the kitchen behind the fridge, you know, the usual places. This has been a week ago and we still haven't been able to find rat traps or poison at any of the stores! The sisters were trying to trap a rat in the convent and one of the high school girls (that stays with them in the convent during the school year) ended up killing it by smashing it with a bucket! We came in and saw the trail of blood and it laying there bleeding and couldn't figure out how it died. When we found out Maria had killed it with a bucket I was so impressed but she just kind of shrugged her shoulders as if it was nothing at all. Wow, growing up here is a bit different than in the states! How many high school girls do you know that would see a rat and pick up a bucket and smash it to death?!
4. The day after that in the boys' house (thank God it wasn't our house!) a tarantula climbed up on of the volunteer's legs. Apparently it had crawled into his duffel bag and when he dumped it out to do laundry it fell out and crawled up his leg! In his words "I was barefoot so I couldn't even step on it! I yelled and swiped it off and ran into the other room like a little girl!" I can't imagine and I really hope I never get to experience it for myself... so creepy! The boys have tons of geckos in their house which is probably what's attracting the tarantulas since they each geckos, lizards, frogs, etc. But we like the geckos because they eat the mosquitoes!
So, as you can see... the ants are the least of my issues ;o) Actually, the roaches haven't been nearly as bad as I thought they would be, in fact I think they're worse in MS and TX. Now I have to say that it's really not that bad down here because I don't want anyone to change their plans to come and see me because of the rodents and insects! But Angela you should be happy to know that I check my bed almost every night before I put my feet under the sheet!
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