Lizard Tales

Lizards. They’re everywhere here. Everywhere.

At first, I thought they were really neat. They’re so fast, and they wiggle so strangely when they run. They jump from high objects and splat onto the ground. It’s really gross-sounding, but it doesn’t seem to faze them.

A couple days ago I was walking to my bedroom, when I paused. There was a lizard in front of my door.

It was like the slow-motion scene in a movie. I stretched out my hand and I could feel myself starting to say “NOOOOOO” and then it ran under my door into my room.

I stood in the middle of my room, nervously scanning my walls and floors for the wily miscreant.

I heard some rustling in my luggage.

NO. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.

The lizard was in my clothes. GET IT OUT NOW.

I gingerly lifted the top of my luggage case. Nothing happened.

So I grabbed the tips of a couple shirts and yanked.

The lizard came out flying at me and I screamed like a little girl and covered my face.

I usually try to keep my cool, but that was just too much. It was traumatic.

The lizard jumped on my backpack.

So I stood there, breathing heavily, willing myself to grab my backpack and carry it outside, and terrified that it would jump out at me again.

Emily. You are in Africa. You be a big girl now and grab that backpack. If a lizard is the worst thing you’ll have to face here, count yourself lucky, you big baby.

So I gingerly grasped the top of the backpack. The lizard hopped inside. I could hear the lizard wiggling all around, so I suppressed the screams that were bubbling up inside and practically threw the backpack outside my room. The lizard hopped out of my backpack and disappeared down the hall. Although I realized that this was not an ideal situation, as the lizard was still somewhere inside the building, I returned to my room and barred the gap between my door and the floor with some sugarcane, selfishly delighted that the lizard was no longer my problem.

The next day, I was listening to music in my room, and I heard screaming coming from the room next to mine.

Nicolle and Camille were both screaming. There was a lizard in Nicolle’s room.

A hero would have caught the lizard for them. I am not a hero. I am merely the facilitator and there is nothing in my job description about catching lizards.

The first thing I did was put something in front of my door so that the lizard wouldn’t run into my room again. The second thing I did was stand in front of Nicolle’s door with Renee and watch Nicolle and Camille try to catch the lizard. I’m currently hanging my head in shame.

The lizard was freakishly fast and it was everywhere. I was still too put out by the flying lizard incident of the day prior to do much good, although I did come up with the idea to try to put a box over it to get it out of Nicolle’s room.

Camille eventually got a box over it and slid a piece of cardboard underneath it. She and Nicolle picked the entire shebang up very gingerly, and speed-walked the entire operation to the door that I held open. They threw the box out of the door, and the lizard darted away into the weeds.

The moral of this story is 1) that I’m way more squeamish about lizards than I thought I was, and 2) I am not to be depended on to catch small reptiles.

Also, I’m hoping that that is the end to lizards in our rooms.