La Cucaracha

Recently I changed the batteries in my headlamp so it was super bright, and went out at night to use the bathroom. When I lifted the lid off the beam of light was unintentionally pointed directly to the bottom of my pit latrine. This is one of the things here I try to avoid seeing or thinking about...kind of like what's in my food, or what the man sitting next to me on the gely is thinking, I don't want to know. And I don't want to know what's at the bottom of my pit latrine either. That night I got a good eye full and my life hasn't been the same since. I thought I saw the bottom of my pit latrine moving. What?...I bent closer, rubbed my eyes, and saw that the entire bottom and sides of the 6 foot hole was covered in gigantic cockroaches. Yes I'm admitting it, I had a serious serious cockroach problem. And these aren't you're average unintimidating American cockroach, these are African cockroaches and like everything else in Africa, they are enormous. As I was looking down, I remember thinking "uh oh, the pit latrine has collapsed inside because there's no way a cockroach six feet away can still look so big...ohhhh, no they're really that big."

I should have let it go. They don't really bother me. I've never seen one crawl out while the lid was off...except for the few that would sometimes be stuck to the lid. But of course I couldn't let it go. I would lay awake at night constructing ideas for the cockroach colony's demise. So I tried smoking them out by throwing burning trash down there and covering the top with a rice bag. Unsuccessful. I have been throwing my old batteries down there (and before you flip out let me just say that there is no recycling in this country, or battery collection for that matter, so it all ends up in the ground anyway) but no, I think the battery acid just made them bigger.

So the last thing I tried may have ended up being one of the most traumatizing events of my life, and therefore one of the most regrettable things I've ever done. It all started when I was chasing a spider around (as usual) with a can of insect killer, which by the way I think should be taken off the market because it smells like flowers even though breathing it in probably gives you cancer. But lets leave it on the market until I'm done here. So this is how I ended up standing next to my pit latrine with a can of Bop in my hand and a dead spider at my feet. For months I had been considering it...Just a little spray down there would do so much more damage than the smoke or batteries ever did. But what had been stopping me was the sound of Lucia's voice ringing in my ears, telling the story of what happened when she sprayed Bop down her pit latrine. Mass exodus. All of the bugs in her pit latrine had come crawling out at once. I really didn't want that to happen, but standing there with the Bop in one hand, eyes on the pit latrine, and a lack of impulse control were all too much. I lifted the lid and sprayed straight into the hole for a good half minute. I threw the lid back on and listened. No stampeding...just silence. I lifted the lid an inch and peeked. Nothing. Ha! That's right you little shits, I win! So I sprayed for another minute and put the lid back on. Problem solved, or so I thought.

Fifteen minutes later I had to pee, of course. I swear I only pee 3 times a day here no matter how much water I drink and they are always at the most inconvenient times. So I went into my backyard, planned on just peeking again to see if they were going to come out. I lifted the lid 1/2 an inch and then, madness. The lid went flying out of my hands as hundreds of toycar-sized red cockroaches came running out. I was hopping around trying not to scream or piss myself as they were crawling over my feet and up my legs.
Did you know cockroaches can fly? Somehow I missed this piece of common knowledge, even after a Biology degree (thank you Appalachian State) so you can imagine my surprise when the one I was banging with a flip-flop decides nonchalantly just to fly away. The cheap bitik flipflop wasn't doing the job so I grabbed the plastic cup I use for my bucket baths. I must have blacked out in a cockroach killing rage because the next thing I know I'm sitting on the ground with a broken plastic cup in my hand in the middle of a battlefield of hundreds of twitching and dead roaches...still terrified.

Normally roaches don't scare me, even the ones here which are so big it's got to be a joke, but seeing two hundred of anything running towards me is definitely enough to traumatize. I pulled myself together and called Katie to tell her what had happened. She laughed and said to make sure to get rid of all of the white things that had come out when I squished them because those were the egg sacks.

That night I was ready to take the lid off again. I put on closed toed shoes with my pants tucked into them (no nerd!) and had a brick in my other hand. I took the lid off and nothing, no movement and complete silence. I shone my light down to the bottom and took complete pleasure in what I saw. There were no roaches on the lid or the sides and the bottom wasn't moving. Just a layer of hundreds of dead cockroaches laying still and very dead at the bottom. Sweet sweet success.