If you know me well enough in the US, you will know that I'm not a very outdoorsy person. The only times I would do outdoorsy things are when I'm traveling and exploring new places. As you can imagine, I'm not really used to the wild life outside of my comfort zone. That being said, I did grow up in Myanmar for 14 years so I thought that would have given me enough background experience to survive in Cambodia. Now, am I surviving in Cambodia? Totally! Am I surviving well? Not really. How am I surviving exactly? Well, here's a brief look into how I navigate my struggles with critters. I'm giving the full disclaimer that I am a squeamish chicken, and therefore, my personal struggles are relevant only to me. You might not find them that scary, and that's fine, but don't you dare try to tell me I'm freaking out over a little harmless creature. Many people live with unreasonable fears. These creepy crawlers and jumpers just happen to be mine. In case you don't know, let me just tell you how much I hate frogs. I hate them. I hate them sooooo much that I feel my throat closes up and stomach churns when I see them. I hate how they look. I hate how they move. I hate that I can't determine what their next move is. I especially hate that the frogs I come across blends into the surroundings. I think these are just brown asian tree frogs, but like I said, I hate them so much that I can't bear to be in their general vicinity. One more critter I came to dislike immensely: geckos! Sure, the gecko from Geico commercial is super cute, but when you see the geckos in real life close up, it can be a scary experience. The Cambodian geckos are called Tokay Geckos. They're much bigger than the ones I've come acrossed in Myanmar, and also comes in different colors and shapes. I don't know if it's a scientifically proven fact or just my observation though. Now, I've been at my current village for 1 year and 3 months. I've been lucky for the first 1 year in a sense that I only saw these geckos and frogs from a far. To be specific, I saw them in my Health Center bathrooms. My Health Center only has 2 bathrooms. They're quite clean and nice for rural bathrooms. The only problem is that one big gecko (blue with red dots) live the men's bathroom and the camouflaging brown tree frog lives in the women's one. It's become a crazy habit of mine to check each bathroom every time I want to use it. Around 30% of the time, I get lucky and don't see them in at least one of the bathrooms so I can use it freely. However, most of the time, each of them are always in their specific bathrooms that I actually have to hold it in and go home to use the bathroom. I do this quite often too. It's definitely a crazy routine, but I just really can't get myself to go into a small enclosed space with this critter. I felt like my heart was about to jump out of my chest every time. About 3 months ago during the rainy season, I've had my first encounter with a camouflaging frog. I always park my bicycle next to my host family's house and hang my helmet on my bike handles. On that very horrible day, it was raining lightly and I decided that it was a good idea for to go for a quick bike ride as an evening workout. I grabbed my helmet in the same motion as I always do, but touched something soft and weird inside of my helmet with my fingers. I saw there was a white/gray frog inside and I literally screamed at the top of my lungs, threw my helmet far away, and I fell to the ground in a heap. Thankfully, no one witness such a crazy moment. Now, every time I'm about to grab my helmet, I poke it or swing it first. It's another crazy habit I've developed here for sure. Another heart wrenching experience just happened last night. Windows here don't have netting so any animal small enough can come in through it. I've had sparrows, butterflies, house geckos, fireflies, mice, any kinda small insect you can imagine in my room before. I was cleaning my room and preparing some Christmas gifts when I hear a thud suddenly. I looked and saw a Tokay Gecko on the floor near my window. My first instinct was to ran, so I definitely left my room. And then I went back into take a picture. Mind you, I was freaking out so it wasn't the best quality. It also looks bigger in real life! I went to grab my host mom right after I finished take this picture. She came with me to help look for it. She also asked my host sister bring a long broom to help deal with the gecko. She was almost as scared as I was too, but she put on a brave face and tried to take the lead. We tried to look under my bed where I keep my suitcases and bags. We found nothing. We cleared out all the floor space, and still couldn't find it, but I just couldn't shake this feeling that it was still somewhere in my room. I brought out my flashlight and tried to look through my clothing shelf, and surely, there it was behind it! My host mom bravely grabbed one end of my clothing shelf and remove it from the wall. While all of this was happening, I was standing on my bed safely behind my mosquito net like the big chicken that I am. I was also able to capture another picture of it. My host mom used the long broom to guide the gecko towards the window. The guiding process wasn't easy either. We were sooo worried that the gecko was going to go under the bed, or worse, come our way! After kinda saw it leave the window, we double checked the rails and everything. I closed all my windows and tried to sleep feeling all creeped out and scared. I was thinking at least my windows were close. Of course, 1 hour into my sleep, I started sweating like crazy so I had to suck it up and open the windows back up. All night, it was hard to fall asleep again because I keep hearing noises that feels like creepy crawlers are every where.
I didn't think I was going to write about this part of my experience in Peace Corps. However, I had such a difficult time last night and today that I wanted to share. This afternoon, I left home already to run errands. After a while, I felt like using the toilet so I stopped by my health center. Just my luck, both critters were there in each of their bathrooms. I left to go to the high school's one and only functioning bathroom. It seemed empty so I used it. As I was exiting the bathroom though, I saw something move in the corner of my eye and saw the biggest spider ever.... but spiders are another story for another day. Until next time! <3
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Christine can be reached at [email protected].
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