The day started a bit shoddy. I felt like poo after losing my voice in Nuku'alofa, and it was my first morning of gladly waking up in my own bed. (Nuku'alofa was nice, but by the end, I was ready to get back. That city just isn't my favorite, and I was tired of spending money.)
Anyway, so my body feels completely weak and incapable of performing such medial tasks as rolling to the left, lifting up the mosquito net, and ascending into morning life. But I did it, eventually. I needed to lesson plan anyway, since I went to bed so early on Wednesday due to sickness and the need for a night of sleep without earthquakes or a full-day agenda. (We've had a lot of earthquakes lately.)
ANYway, I eat breakfast, teach, and come back to the dishes from the morning and the night before... I'm always anal about dishes, but I was soooo tired and sickly. But it was a bad choice.
I can't explain to you the number of ants--not the tiny scurrying ones, but the reddish ones with spidery long legs. They were lined up like militia on the edges of my bowls, pots, pans, forks, spoons... no joke, there were hundreds. When it comes to ants in Tonga, hundreds is hardly an exaggeration.
Fortunately, I used the rest of the red-bottle Mortein, the insect-killer here in Tonga, the one that kills on-the-spot. I drowned the rest. I finished killing them in about 15 minutes and decided it was a sign to do the dishes.
The rest of the day was hazy. By 10 I was asleep again...which is a big sign that I'm sick, since I'm incapable of taking naps, and I woke up at 1 when a PC lady called me to tell me that the rest of my purchases from Nuku were on the way in the boat. Great. Another trip to town when all I want to do is sleep or possibly remove my inflamed throat glands.
When I returned home with my 3 boxes, I was so excited to get my new things... I had a new energy now--one that wanted to clean and arrange new food, organization tools (God knows I need that) and other items to make my house feel more homey.
First, though, was the Black Mortein. This is the atomic bomb of insect killer, only you spray it along walls, floors, etc. and it kills any insect (except ants, for some reason) that crosses it for 6 months. And it works, too. So I covered my house with a happy sense of accomplishment. The only cockroach I would see in 6 months would be a dead one. Yesssss.
I start cleaning out my cockroach-poo infested cabinets to line with leftover floor linoleum when the first emerges. It's a medium-size cockroach and it's struggling. I kill it quickly, but the guts shoot about 10 inches across the floor. Luckily I just bought paper towels and all-purpose cleaner. Problem solved. Then a poor baby geico suffered the Mortein activation, and then another cockroach, and I swept them outside. A third cockroach emerged by my cabinet and I decided to get a shoe from my room to smash it. I walked through the kitchen, stopped mid-living-area and contemplated just taking off my own flip flop rather than dirtying the sole of another. I stepped back in hesitation...
on a squishy long-ish thing.
At first I thought, "Oh no, I just stepped on a poor dead geico...I don't want them to die!"
And I looked down at the writhing, wriggling, spiny, and terrible creation of...
the molokau.
It was sick from the Mortein dosage, but it was the most intimidating, ugly thing I've ever seen. Opposed to the picture, it was a yellowish-red color, at least 4 inches long, and I stepped on it! Luckily, my shoe was still in place, and it was too sick to wrap over my toes. It would've hurt like a mother... molokau stings are pretty serious here. You can die if you don't handle the sting properly.
Needless to say, I screamed. It was a hoarse, broken, embarrassing scream, which I repeated after the biggest noted cockroach in my house flew kamikaze-style at my head until I deflected it with the broom with which I had just swept away the remains of the molokau and a dead wasp.
I was done.
I took my broom, sat it in my room, hauled my scared self into my bed, and tucked in the mosquito net as tight as it would go.
I needed to NOT see bugs for a few minutes.
Then I realized, "Shoot, my front DOOR is open, which means random people might come into my house, but then they'll see the mess in my kitchen, but I don't want to go into the war zone to shut my door because I don't want to see another molokau or kamikaze cockroach or a poor dead geico...I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this!"
Eventually, I calmed myself, shut the door, and found only baby cockroaches on the floor. Luckily, some students came over to exercise, so we walked through the village and talked about life. It was nice to get away and to chill with the kids. I told them my story and the "trouble maker" of the classroom--the one whose mouth I wanted to sew shut--gave me a high five and said, "Good, Jame!" I felt proud.
Anyway, eventually I will post the video I took of the live molokau... it's pretty cool/scary/realistic. And the day turned out great, to be honest. The massacre motivated me to clean my house and start organizing things differently. By the end of the night, I had begun sewing my own skirt (I'm almost finished now... Mom, I know you're glowing with pride!), and I'm planning on using other material for seat-pillows in my kitchen.
Self-sufficient, that's me!
Oh mighty molokau-killin', cockroach-defeatin', skirt-sewin', pillow-makin', house-cleanin' Seini, the new Tongan woman.
Rosie the Riveter would shine my shoes.
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