Yo prefiero the chucharachas

Yo prefiero the cucharachas. I never imagined I would entertain such contemplation, but the nightly rats in mi casa, racing up through the rafters and chewing through my ropas like a new pup, or the pocito ormigas-ants- crawling up my legs like fire and in seconds flat clutching on to a nice bite of one of my sensitive body parts, or the black, crusty, prehistoric scorpions, geez, just give me the hibby geebies.

Now, I have a great reverence for life, to the point that most critters are nicely air-lifted and escorted out of our room, our house rather than face the death squad. However, the scorpions have made it off this list and are now squash material - all of them. For the spiders and tarantualas, we just leave them alone. They eat the mosquitos and tend to revisit the same spot each night. I just pull my nightly watchman duty, doing a nightly scope of the walls to assess the location of our additional housemates and move on. Now, do not assume we are without fear, each night the mosquito net is wrapped tight around the bed and the sheets shaked out to tossle any scorpions. Then, and only then will we attempt to slumber.

Our slumber and living at the orphanage is accompanied by a symphony of sounds. The over 500 chickens (right next to the house) cluck almost all the time, you will get the roosters going off any time of day as well, the ducks sort of live out in front and like to hang out around the perimeter of our casa. The other day I came home from work to find Matthew serenading a whole flock of ducks that were chilled out to his sweet mountain tunes. The howler monkeys are now feeding off some fruit in the trees above our house and so we get to gaze upon their presence often, yet one must be careful for where there are monkeys above, there is falling monkey shit and pee. We have not been victim yet, but have witnessed a few kids get slammed hard.

What else, ahh, the roar of the generator, my new alarm clock, that kicks on around 4 in the morning and sporadically rises and falls throughout the day, always giving us an excited surprise as to when and where we may be blessed with modern electricity. Then there are the coches, the pigs. I really like going and watching them. We have all sizes here, big pigs, little pigs, new pigs, old pigs, pink pigs, spotted pigs. When they snooze they just climb all on top of each other, and when they feed they do the same thing but with the most piercing bark. Some of the larger pigs will even stand up on their hind legs and balance their front ones on the wall, supporting their tonful bodies. Their heads lifted up in chorus, belting out for food, their ears flare out like dumbo, and yes, they too do this all the time. Yet, all these noises, along with the kids, the shouts of mira, mira (look, look) are all becoming part of us now. It is really only the dawn screches of the solitary pig being slaughtered that still make me flinch from my sleep. Today, here at the hotel run by the orphange I am overwhelmed by the constant noise of radio, jet skis, motor boats, people all day and all night long. Tonight, after working an unpaid 12 hour day, I am out of here and on a lancha back to the casa. Going to pack the bags tomorrow, hug on the necks of a few kids, and bus and ferry our way to some tropical, tranquilo spot in honduras.