My new roommates

So after about 2 weeks here I’ve come to the conclusion that Honduran bugs are nocturnal. Unlike their American counterparts who practically throw themselves at lightbulbs and lanterns, the Honduran bugs walk in the shadows and make appearances in the middle of the night. Thankfully, I own a headlamp. Headlamp=most useful thing I brought, besides the quickdry towel. (Future PCVs, I recommend the PETZL brand.) My headlamp lights up my whole room, so I can see the bugs, but it’s still just dark enough that they still believe that they can roam freely.

Little do they know that I’m the bug cazador (hunter). With my bugzooka, I have a bug-catching range of nearly 3 feet. I’m getting quite skilled at using the bugzooka.

Phoop. I caught a probably malaria or dengue-carrying mosquito. Phoop. I caught a big red ant. Phoop. I just caught a 2-inch long cockroach.

I’ve had it with the cockroaches. Just to clarify, there are not cockroaches in my host family’s house because it is not clean. On the contrary, my house is extremely clean. However, in Honduras it stays warm enough year-round, that cockroaches can live outside, unlike most of their American domestic counterparts. The fact that my room opens up to an open-air courtyard does not help...

The cockroaches essentially live in my door frame. When I turn the light off, they sneak out of the door frame crevices and pitter-patter around the door and the wall. They are by far the hardest bug to catch with my bugzooka. They are really fast little buggers and seem to have this 6th sense when the bugzooka gets too close to them. They are also so big that I can’t help but doubt that they will fit into the bugzooka opening.

If you don’t suck them up just right, they don’t go into the zooka and merely loose their balance and fall to the floor where they potentially disappear under my bed or desk. This happened to me the other night. I totally freaked out, but luckily the cockroach had a change of heart, removed itself from under my bed and escaped under my door and out into the courtyard. But the night before, I caught a big fat one. Take that, sucker! Tonight, I’m sitting in my room on my bed with the lights off and my headlamp on with bugzooka in hand. Yeah, you laugh, but wouldn’t you do the same. Tonight’s cucaracha (cockroach) seems to be bigger the previous few and makes a sickening pitter patter as it runs along the door frame and sniffles its long antennas around. It’s already escaped me twice. But I’m not about to let it escape me again. I’m going to get you cucaracha scum!

For those of you who know me well, you know that my biggest fear has always been my spider phobia. However, you’ll be surprised to know that this is the creepy crawly that I hunt the least. There is definitely an abundance of spiders here, but I feel that the spiders and I have come to a kind of mutual understanding. We’re still enemies, but we have come to form a sort of alliance against the zancudos (mosquitoes), cucarachas and biting ants. This is not to say that I don’t Bugzooka them from time to time. I am definitely not allied with the big furry, creepy-crawly type that could end up on my face in the morning. I bugzooka those immediately. However, I’m cool with spiders provided that they do not violate my personal space and/or are not hanging from the ceiling over my head or roaming around my bed or closet. The daddy long leg ones make me a little squeamish, but as long as they are the sedentary-I-make-a-web-in-the-corner-and-stay-there type, we’re cool.

So, if the extensive Medical Clearance forms had had a question regarding bug phobias, perhaps I wouldn’t have received my clearance; or if I had received it, it is assured that I would have been sent to a permafrost land devoid of bugs.