My roommate Devika and I really click when it comes to
certain things. For example, we
both hate spiders and thus enact protocols to stomp these eight-legged
intruders in our living space. We
also both have an appreciation for musical interludes and parodies (more on
this later). The spider issue was
a problem in our luxury tents where a little, tiny hole in the zipper region
meant – in my mind at least – a parade of spiders would be able to enter, crawl
all over my face, and into my mouth as I slept at night. We made do with the sock in the zipper
and every night when we entered the tent, we would do a sweep and execute any
foreign creepy crawlies. You can
imagine our delight when we heard we’d be moving on up to the research center
(with ROOMS, although not luxury…) during our next class (Field Ecohydrology
with Kelly Caylor, featuring MatLab).
Before that, however, we had four more days of Ecology of the Savanna Ecosystem
(with Dustin Rubenstein, featuring dik-diks). For these last four days, we were going to Ol Pejata. When Dustin first introduced Ol Pejata
to us, he said it cost $300/night to stay there. Holy Moley! We
were movin’ on up! As the trip
approached, he let it slip that the super awesome tourism lodging cost$300/night, but that we’d be staying at the research camp (SCIENCE !=
LUXURY). Always a roller coaster
with Dusty… making us believe one thing, then later making us believe we
misheard him and actually something much less appealing is in store. Anyway, I was still excited to go to Ol
Pejata Nature Conservancy because we’d be staying in not tents. Also, there are rhino at Ol Pejata. RHINO! So we packed up our bags and headed for our deluxe
walled-rooms in central Kenya’s Laikipia district where Ol Pejata is
located. Lo and behold, these are
not “rooms” per se, but thatched huts.
THATCHED HUTS (wait… it gets worse). I wasn’t really upset about the thatch because there was a
bathroom in the hut – a wall separated the bedroom area from the shower, sink,
and toilet, but there was no door from bedroom to bathroom, or the components
of the latter. A bathroom in the
room meant no taking a midnight trek of horrors to the bathroom where a bat
would be sure to fly by my face as I tried to pee. We were moving on… sideways. Devika and I shared the room with Molly and Caroline (two
very non-bug-annoyed human beings).
Upon entering the room – once I got over the whole thatched thing – we
picked our beds. I don’t know why,
but I wanted a bigger bed. I
wanted to sprawl my appendages out across a queen-sized mattress. Well, Caroline and Devika had already
chosen to two queens, but Caroline didn’t care and switched with me so she got
the twin and I got my queen.
Things were good. Things
were great even, for a minute before I realized there was dusty looking stuff
on my mattress in addition to a SWARM OF ANTS. Okay, maybe not a swarm, but there was certainly a nonzero
amount of ants in my bed. I
brushed them off. No big
deal. Ants don’t really both me
that much because they’re so small and most don’t bite you. I figured, I’d sweep them away, they’d
get the picture (“Somewhere sleeps in this bed!” in antspeak) and they’d leave
me alone. This didn’t happen. I’d sweep away a handful and minutes
later, another stream of ants would occupy the exact location. I didn’t understand, was there sugar in
my bed. Was I just the sweetest
thing ever encountered (I mean, I am pretty sweet, but…). It didn’t make any sense to me what was
so AMAZING about my bed. More
annoying was the fact that no one else was having this problem. Caroline’s bed had, like, one ant on
it. Devika had a bunch, but after
a sweep, they went away and STAYED AWAY.
Molly might’ve had some, but she doesn’t complain so I have no idea. Maybe her bed was worse; the world may
never know.
The first night was hell. I wish I had sleeping pills or something, because just trying to fall asleep when you’re
thinking about a million ants crawling all over you and into your crevices is impossible. I really don’t know how I fell
asleep. I think I accepted the
inevitable, that ants would eat me alive in the middle of the night and that
would be the end. Things got
worse, when, as I was reading The Great
Gatsby before bed, something flew across our room and into the
bathroom. Molly, flustered, looked
up and said, “I think that was a bat.”
NOT AGAIN. NOT ANOTHER
FRACKING BAT. What is with bats
and me. We’ve started calling me
the bat magnet. Anyway, when I
finally considered myself so tired I was in the pass out stages of my bed time
ritual, I wrapped myself in my blanket like a burrito and succumb to sleep.
In the morning, I woke up and there were no ants on me. I was amazed. I was confused.
When I got up, I saw my body imprint outlined what I’d call an Ant
Graveyard. When ants came to my
side of the bed, and I rolled over and crushed them to death. I wasn’t sorry. They knew what they were getting
themselves into. I mean, they
must’ve seen the other dead bodies.
As a trained WFR, I know, if you see dead bodies around, there’s
probably something in the air or something and you should back away and safely
assess the situation from a distance.
These ants just didn’t have any common sense. As I stared at the Ant Graveyard, I saw on the other side of
my queen-sized bed, ants alive and kicking, and marching through my clothes –
which I had put on my bed because the floor wasn’t an option and I was too
afraid to open the closet for fear a bat would fly out. In addition to the ants, there was this
black, grainy stuff, which I suspected was dirt from the thatch, that fell
whenever the bat flew around up there.
Basically, my bed was covered in ants, a dirt-like substance, and my
clothes. What a wonderful mix.
I got over it.
Shake out the clothes and the ants are gone. Realize that ants don’t want to eat you alive and sleep
well. The next night things went
fine. Same ants, same dirt-stuff,
another late night bat sighting, but on the whole, everything was fine.
Then, our last night in the thatched hut. (By the way, we were so used to using
the word tents to describe where we lived that we called these rooms tents
too. Thus, moving sideways.). As I was laying in my bed with forty of
my new closest friends (i.e. the ants), I heard Molly get rustle, get up, and
hit something. Molly doesn’t scare
easily, so I knew something was up.
She had been partially attacked by bees. BEES. WHY’D IT
HAVE TO BE BEES. Remember those
wasps from the bathroom (I don’t know if I ever wrote about bathroom wasps, but
at the campsite, we had wasps infect our bathroom for several days. It was rendered unusable.), well, here
were wasps (bees, wasps, same thing) in OUR ROOM! I SUPER TIGHTLY WRAPPED MYSELF AS A BURRITO – like, tighter
than the best Chipotle burrito you’ve had – and resolved not to leave my
burrito home in the middle of the night, even if it meant peeing my pants. I didn’t have to worry about soiling
myself as I slept, though; the bat decided to do that for me. When I woke up in the morning, I was
relieved that I hadn’t been attacked by bees (beads?). I went over to my clothes pile and saw
it. A huge lump of sh*t on my
clothes.
BATSH*T. ON MY
CLOTHES.
Bats are pretty small, so when I say huge, and don’t mean
human huge. But let’s be real. Any amount of bat poop on your personal
items is WAY TOO MUCH BAT POOP ON YOUR PERSONAL ITEMS. I was like, get me the frack out of
here before I track down this bat and bite its head of myself. (I’m just kidding, that would be way to
gross. I mean, I have no interest
in holding a bat in my hands.) I
wrapped my sh*tty clothes in a baggy and packed up my backpack so fast I forgot
to pack my awesome flashlight (it was left behind and I am SO FRICKIN’ PISSED…
but these things happen.).
Lesson learned:
always take the smaller bed.
So what was I actually
doing at Ol Pejata besides freaking out about bats and ants?
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