Things that crawl

CHIMERES UPDATE
The idiot thugs in Haiti who want Aristide back in power showed off an impressive array of new weapons they have just received. The cache includes hand grenades, so it looks like the war in the streets is being kicked up a notch.

THINGS WITH MORE THAN 4 LEGS
Any excursion to a tropical place conjures in my mind only one thing: bugs. Living in San Jose, bugs are not really a huge factor in my life. I've fought (and won) many battles with ants, earwigs and the occasional cockroach. In Haiti, the insects are at the top of the food chain.

The flashy, attention grabber as far as multi-legged creatures are concerned is a large, hairy spider similar to a tarantula. It may even be a tarantula, but arachnid identification has not been one of my hobbies. One night we came into our hotel room at the Ibo Lele. When we first entered, I thought I heard someone say, "Turn the f*#&ing light off!" I didn't think too much of it at the time, until I went to the bathroom and encountered the fellow pictured in my Haiti photos (check him/her out at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/chilekwk/my_photos
Click on the Haiti album
I didn't have another object close at hand to give the spider some size perspective in the photo, but imagine that a mid-sized car could have fit in the same frame. This is not the sort of thing you step on, especially since he/she was so pissed that I turned on the light. Besides, it would have taken me all night to clean up the remains. My best shot was to convince our 8 legged friend to go to another guest room, or back into the wild where he/she belongs. (NOTE HERE: hotel rooms seem to be their natural habitat.)

I opened the door to our room and performed a maneuver with my foot similar to a field goal kicker. The spider rolled out the door and slammed into a brick planter just outside. At first I thought about seeing if he/she was ok, but if turning on the light angered him, I didn't want to be around when he/she regained equilibrium. Later that night, Sacha went out for some ice and reported that our arachnid friend was happily making his/her way to terrorize another guest.

A GRUDGING RESPECT
I must admit that I have been quite impressed by the activities of one of God's little creatures: the mosquito. I thought there was only one breed of these winged emissaries of Satan: mosquitus annoyus, But in Haiti they have dozens of them. Each one has a different time when they like to bite you--that's right, the mosquitos work in shifts here in Haiti. They also carry different diseases, so if one doesn't get you the species still has other opportunities to make your days on Earth miserable. Among the gifts a mosquito can give are malaria and dengue fever. The only protection against mosquito bites is to cover every exposed area of your skin 24 hours a day. Since that is essentially impractical, health professionals advise you to slather all exposed, non-sensitive areas with DEET, the only effective mosquito repellant known to man. DEET was once thought to be completely harmless to humans, so some preparations had up to 90% DEET in them. At these concentrations, however, DEET can dissolve synthetic fabrics. After many people had their bathing suits permanently attached to their bodies after using such preparations, the mosquito repellant industry did some research. They found that DEET can be just as effective in lower concentrations. They also discovered that DEET is, surprise, absorbed by the skin. Remember, this shit can dissolve synthetic fabrics, so having it in your body must pose some sort of health hazard. Not surprisingly, the DEET manufacturers insist that DEET is completely safe.

Daily living with all your exposed skin slathered in DEET is not what I consider to be a high quality of life. But being bit by mosquitos is many times worse, so I slather myself up several times a day. I consider a good night one in which I only have a few bites when I awaken. Mosquito netting, also recommended by health officials, is impractical because it's also hot and humid here. The netting is so dense that it prevents air circulation, posing another difficult choice: death by heat or being a buffet for flying insects.

My respect for mosquitos comes from the fact that, despite the advances of modern chemistry and health awareness, those little bastards still manage to get to you. When I arrived in Haiti, I was determined to NEVER let a mosquitos lips touch my skin. (NOTE HERE: do mosquitos have lips?). My virginity was lost about an hour after landing. This solidified my resolve to at least keep the bites to a minimum. I have yet to determine what a "minimum" is in terms of insect bites, but I find that 3-4 per day do not seem to have a negative effect on my quality of life. Of course, that depends on where you are bitten, and that's where I really learned to respect mosquitos.

After a careful analysis of my daily life here in Haiti, I identified specific times each day when I was most vulnerable to encountering a hungry mosquito. My plan was to make that designated dangerous exposure time as short as possible. Here's an example: When I get up each morning to take my first pee, that is when I am the most vulnerable. I'm sleepy, most of my DEET has worn off, and I am about to expose some areas that have not been DEET slathered. I've got my peeing time down to a brisk 85 seconds on average, and the exposed areas are minimal. In the almost 3 weeks that I've been here, I've still managed to suffer about 10 bites while taking my morning pee. Since I must expose some sensitive areas during this activity, I can't really expect to put DEET on all of them. Well, low and behold, I have received two bites right in the small of my back (where I cannot reach to scratch) and an astounding THREE on the inside of my thigh! One area I cannot reach to get the DEET on, the other is way too close to parts of my body where I refuse to apply something to my skin that dissolves synthetic fabric. The bottom line: those goddamn creatures are resourceful and determined. No area is sacred to them. At night I often sleep 100% covered by the sheet. I can do this because I use a CPAP machine for sleep apnea, so it's kind of like scuba gear for staying under linens. One night, I apparently let one finger slip outside the sheet and I received a bite on the very tip of my finger. Another time I was bitten in the palm of my hand: the thickest and toughest part of the human skin. Do these little guys want my blood? You betcha!

I also have in my room a device made by a company called Fumakilla. It emits a vapor of pralethrin, known to destroy mosquitos under laboratory conditions. This has an effect on the mosquitos much like a big bong hit of some really excellent hashish. The mosquitos are sent into a stupor and slowly move away from my room. They then go into another room in the house and get the insect version of the munchies. OK for me, bad for my roommates. I'm still waiting to see if Fumakilla will melt any of my polyester pants

A human being can learn to live with many things, but mosquitos are not one of them. I honestly believe that Adam and Eve got their naked asses chewed off in the Garden Of Eden at the dawn of man, and the last living human on Earth will spend most of his/her day searching for DEET. Mosquitos run the planet. We're just here to feed them.

ONE LAST NUISANCE CREATURE
Today as I was preparing the PowerBook for our dubbing session, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye as it scurried across the floor. My curiosity got the best of me so I began to follow it. It was a mouse. He has been living in a cabinet in our "studio" because his nightly activities are noisy enough to ruin a couple of sound takes. His latest activity has been to begin eating our sound blankets. The room is now covered with the probably toxic material inside these blankets (they are much like the old U-Haul moving blankets). He/she spent most of the day running back and forth along a wall, scurrying amongst our many computer and sound cables. If I couldn't step on a big, hairy spider I sure as hell wasn't going to step on a fellow mammal. I tried to reason with him/her, but failed miserably. The owner of the building asked me if I wanted him to put out some traps. "No thanks," I replied. "We'll just try to get the work done before our sound blankets are gone." Live in harmony with nature, I always say.

NEXT TIME: A Haitian movie premiere