Bagblaja

There comes a time in every girl's life when she has to decide whether lifting the lid of the outhouse toilet and seeing a small cockroach hanging out on the seat is a good enough reason to hold it, or should merely be accepted as a matter of course.

Ok, well, maybe not every girl's life, but that time has come and gone in this girl's life at least. I'm proud to say that I've been in Africa long enough to accept such things as a matter of course. (For all of you secretly wondering, I did move it before I sat down though.) My paranoia about finding creepy crawlies in my room/bed/etc. is quite low and my tolerance for actually finding them in those places is quite admirable. I am not some silly, squeamish tourist, thank you very much.

I sit down at the table in my room to do some more foundation work and keep hearing a rustling sound, which I assume is coming from outside. (Let me emphasis this: the movements of the unidentified marauder were loud enough to hear.) Then I glance down at my feet and catch a glimpse of movement. Up go the feet for safety, down goes the head for inspection.

Then I see it: I've met rottweilers that would be intimidated by this cockroach.

 

I'll admit it- I screamed. From the living room, Victoria shouts "What? WHAT??"

"BAGBLAJAAAAAA!" I scream back, launching myself across the room. (Victoria spends the next half hour in a helpless fit of delighted giggles because I answered her in Ewe.)

Worfa, Victoria and Christian come bursting in just in time for the beast to climb up the wall, on to the table and take a flying leap. I start shrieking at a frequency only dolphins can hear. It lands on my computer- not on me, like I'd expected, but this is just adding insult to injury now.

Worfa approaches, ready to kill. It crawls to the edge of the table and launches itself into the air. I dive behind Worfa, in full panic mode now. "I'm under attack!!!" I howl. Victoria is laughing hysterically by this point, and at the same time trying to apologize. For the cockroach's presence or his actions, I'm not sure which.

The fiend lands on the floor and starts making a mad dash for my bed- my BED of all places- and I am still screaming and trying to get as far away as possible and have my hands pulled up to my chest like little T-Rex arms.

 Worfa finally crushes it with his bare foot, picks it up by one leg with his bare hand and marches it outside. Danger over, I start to feel just a little bit foolish for reacting that way to a creature that doesn't bite, sting, or transmit diseases, and suddenly looks about the size of a large matchbox rather than a large dog.

 

Perhaps I need to spend a little more time in Africa after all.