Bats. Beets. Battlestar Gallactica.

Ok, so that last one didn’t really have anything to do with the past couple weeks but if you got that reference, points for you!

A lot of things have been happening lately that have really been breaking my heart to see but I don’t want this to be a depressing post so I suppose I’ll save that for another time...

Lately, I’ve been eating a LOT of things. Things I don’t necessarily like and things I never ate back in America. My school head felt bad that the Ministry of Education STILL hasn’t given us furniture or appliances so she gave me a small refrigerator she rarely used from her office. (Must be nice.) I was really grateful for it because she’s been so nice and accommodating towards me. I was also really excited to be able to buy food that I haven’t eaten in months because of refrigeration. Let’s just say I went overboard. I bought things I didn’t know how to cook. “Oh, beets? How do you prepare that? Pretty sure I need that. Hmm, do I want yogurt? Eh, I don’t like yogurt. I’ll buy 6 of those. Butternut, what is that? Get it anyway.” Seriously. I ended up with a 6-pack of yogurt, 2 liters of milk, 4 tomatoes, 2 green bell peppers, and butternut; all of which I would have never bought or ate back home. I guess I just got so excited for a fridge that I really didn’t care about what I liked. And now that I’m eating these things I actually am starting to like them! My fridge is not even in my house (no electricity, remember?) and I know that walking to my office, at the school, 1.5 kilometers away from home seems like a hassle but having been without a fridge for a while, I am just grateful that I have one, even if it means I have to walk a total of 2 miles to and from school just to cook meat and vegetables for dinner. Cold water has never tasted so good!

Another thing. Here is a story about my eventful night, two nights ago. There was a bat in my house. A BAT. I don’t know how that sucker fit through a small opening at the tip of my ceiling but it came in as I was reading and scared the crap out of me. There I was enjoying a book. It was dark and I had only lit one candle this particular night as opposed to my usual two. I hear a flutter and a thud thinking it was a bird that fell but I realize, just as I turned my head to look, it was unusually hairy and quite smaller than a bird. I suddenly realize that it may be a bat and start putting on my beanie, zipping up my sweater and tying it at the neck. The thing with me is I can kill bugs, spiders, insects, whatever, but if that thing touches me and I feel it on my skin I will freak out. So I got my gear on and slowly walk over to it. It flies right out, towards me, and I yell and run out of my house. I am so scared at this point. I leave the door open thinking it will fly out eventually. It doesn’t. I wait 10 minutes, nothing. I realize that nobody is around (of course) and I don’t know what to do.” I know! I’ll call my friends and they’ll know what to do. Oh. But there is my phone sitting on the table, inside the house.” DAMN. Now think of the smallest room in your house. Pretty sure that is the size of my “living room” and I wasn’t trying to go back in there with a bat circling around in it. I seriously wanted to cry. I put my hood on, ducked, and ran in to grab my phone and immediately ran out. I made a few phone calls and with the help of other volunteers and my counterpart, came to the conclusion that I will just have to kill it. I had to talk myself into it thinking of the Nike slogan the whole time. Seriously, this was what was going on in my head as my brain was working: Just do it, Diane. Either you kill it or it will just stay in there and possibly bite you at some point. Do you want rabies? No you don’t. So go in and kill that mofo! I know I sound crazy but if you have never seen a bat up close then shush. So I got enough courage to go in. I go in and the first thing I do is grab the DOOM can and my broom. DOOM is a really strong bug/insect spray that has an ingredient that is illegal to use in the states. (It can’t be good for one’s health if too much inhalation occurs) I mean, I didn’t really think I would spray the thing to death but that was my first instinct. The crazy bat would circle the room and then come towards me. I nearly pissed my pants every time this happened. I would spray every time and then try to hit it but mostly I missed. I did this for about 15 minutes with no luck. I think the spray made it dizzy because it started to hang its ugly little self on the corner of the ceiling but would fall right after. This happened twice. When I went to see if it was dead that little beast would trick me by flying up towards me. UGH! By this point I was determined to kill it. I did my little motivational self-talk to myself again and I waited. I waited and kept my eye on that nasty bat. I kept my eye on it for 5 whole minutes determined that I will hit that sucker with a good aim. You see, I’ve always had a liking towards baseball. You can learn a lot of things from baseball. I kept my eye on it for so long and once I finally hit it that thing flew straight to the wall and slid down. Homerun, baby. I went over to it for the final time to make sure it was dead and kept whacking it and spraying it with DOOM (I don’t know why, don’t ask). I put a bucket over it thinking I’d slide it out my front door but as I slid it, I must’ve caught its wing or something because it let out the most distinct sound of pain, like a sort of hissing/screeching. Now, a normal person would slide that thing right out as soon as possible, wanting nothing to do with it, but am I normal? No. I want to take pictures of everything no matter how disgusting or inappropriate things are so naturally, I wanted a picture of this ugly thing. So I slowly tilted the bucket over to make sure it was dead. Sure enough, it was. For you animal lovers, at first I did feel bad for killing it.  But if you could see up close how sharp its teeth were and how many it had; you would have been glad that I killed it, too. Trust me. Pretty sure that sucker was a vampire and if it sank its teeth into me I would’ve become one, too. I also would have probably had rabies by now or some other disease that bats carry. Didn’t feel so bad after all. After I was able to get a picture of it I kicked that thing out, shut the door, and relished in my recent accomplishment. No big deal.

So the moral of this little horror story is simple: Always keep your eye on the bat.