Creatures

There aren´t many non-human creatures in Antigua, but I´ve been having a time of it with the ones there are.

1) Microscopic creatures.

Sorry I haven´t been very communicative this week--I´ve been sick with some unrelenting Guatemalan bug. I went to a doctor, and he says it´s just a virus, so I´m hopeful that I will be back in full force sometime soon.

2) Mosquitoes shmitoes.

I spend a lot of time marveling at how perfectly evolved these creatures are. I´m not kidding. And yes I do have a lot of time on my hands. And my office is full of mosquitoes, so I have a perfect vantage point from which to study them. Seriously, they´re terminators. They´re machines. So tiny and light, and surprisingly hard to capture, many of them don´t make any noise. Their legs and mouth are so delicate and soft, you often don´t feel it until it´s over. They will find any pin-size spot of skin that is not covered with repellent or clothing. They find their way up pant legs and sleeves. They will hide patiently all day inside my dresser until I turn the lights out at night. They spread disease more efficiently than I finish a plate of Indian food. No wonder they have survived so freaking long and traveled around the world. I wouldn´t be surprised if someone somewhere worshiped them.

3) The mouse--pobrecito.

I´m sitting on my bed about to go to sleep, and out of the corner of my eye I see this little mouse go scurrying across my floor. I go knock on Clemencia´s door, and she´s like, ¨¿De veras? ¡Ay Dios!¨ She, her husband Julio, and Daniel all come into my room to help me, and we all slip happily into our gender roles. The mouse keeps scurrying just out of reach, Clemencia shrieking every time. I hide up on my bed laughing hysterically. Daniel, proudly declaring he has no fear, grabs my headlamp and starts hunting for it, and Julio brings in a lamp and two brooms. Clemencia keeps saying, ¨I have to leave! I´m gonna panic!¨ Finally we lose it for a while. They decide it might be hiding in my suitcase, so we take everything out of my suitcase and don´t find it. It gets very quiet. Clemencia lifts up one of my pillows, finds the mouse, erupts with shrieks, and starts a landslide of yelling and chaos and my hysterical laughter. Finally Julio gets a hold of it. I think we all bonded. Pobre mouse though.