Buggin' out

Unfortunately, this week resembled real life. Damn. My streak of highs was too good to last forever. I’d like to think that it is simply a matter of attitude, but I can’t imagine even the most positive person enjoying the source of my torture: BUGS! I’m even paranoid that in writing this I will piss them off more. Maybe they can sense my fear. Maybe they are plotting their next attack. Or maybe I’m giving them way too much credit right now.

It started out small, with some ordinary fruit flies swarming around the kitchen 24/7. Not really a problem. Moths circling around the cabin at night, occasional spider roaming about. Totally manageable. Then there came the giant slug in the shower. I decided to go to bed dirty that night and pray that it would leave by morning. It did.

They came on stronger as the week went along. Wednesday was a bad day. I worked with Frank that day, which in itself is torture. He micromanages every stupid last detail of the even the most basic project. All that the project entailed was fertilizing some trees, but he blabs on and on about the best strategy for carrying buckets, how many trees a bucket will feed, how to minimize the number trips to get more fertilizer, etc etc ad infinitum. Then he might revise the strategy, at which point I just stop caring altogether.

The icing on the cake was my lovely run-in with a mound of angry ants that swarmed into my boots in record speed. I still can’t fathom how they made it all the up and over my practically knee-length boots before I even noticed them. Needless to say, I totally spazzed, frantically took my boots off, tried to brush them off, then awkwardly ran through a wet obstacle course to get back to safe ground. Eventually I got them all off me with the hose and rinsed out my boots, but the damage was done. I will refrain from counting how many bites I have and just say that my legs are sufficiently hideous and I don’t plan on wearing shorts any time soon.

Then came Thursday. Frank gave me a small window of opportunity to do my laundry after work, so I tried to move fairly quickly (but not too quickly, so I could annoy him a little). I went to fetch my dirty clothes, which I keep in a plastic bag under my bed, and out crawled a tarantula. Ah yes, just what I felt like dealing with. I just stared for a minute, at a loss for how to best approach the hairy little dude. Surprisingly, he didn’t make even the slightest movement. That was promising. So I grabbed the broom and a bucket with the intention of course to sweep him inside. Well, I swept him inside pretty quickly, but he crawled out before I could trap him in, damnit. But then he just stayed put (such a cooperative little fellow), so I thought I could just keep sweeping him until he was out the front door. And sure enough, he stayed frozen, and I just swept him outside. That was a proud moment for me, conquering my fear all by myself, and I am actually fonder of tarantulas now. If only all our insects were so agreeable!

Friday’s incident was much more traumatizing yet so very fascinating. It involved our cute little friend, the caterpillar. The caterpillars I’ve seen on the farm (the name in spanish gusano

ciprés) are a beautiful lime green color, making them nice to look at but also hard to find amidst a field of green coffee plants . Unfortunately, the act of finding them is usually a very painful one. Picking coffee Friday morning, my left hand brushed against one hidden amongst the branches. I felt a very sharp isolated pain on the edge of my pinky finger. Initially, there was no visible mark, but slowly my finger started to swell and subtle white circles appeared where the caterpillar’s spikes made contact. It seemed like a manageable pain at first, but time proved otherwise as I grew nauseous and dizzy. Frank, in a very nice gesture, put my coffee sack on the ground and suggested I lie down for a while with my hand elevated, which I did for about 20 minutes. The pain eventually subsided but didn’t completely go away for about an hour.

Believe it or not, it actually happened again later on the same day! This time though, Angel came over and busted out this crazy cure. I have a short video I’m posting on here, cause it will help explain what happened, and gross you out as an added bonus. He grabs the caterpillar with a couple of leaves and pulls it apart, then rubs its slimy green innards on your hand, which then turns red! It’s supposed to help ease the pain. I think it helps, but it’s still pretty darn painful. Even worse than the pain though is the paranoia that I’m going to encounter another. The rest of the day I worked like a snail as every single branch required a once-over before I would even touch it.

I appreciate the abundance of life here, but I’m not sure how to cope with this many bugs. I am trying my best to coexist peacefully with them, but they are certainly making it difficult. First Frank, now thousands of mini-Franks…isn’t one giant pest enough?