Crab Wars!

I wanted to share some of the night time adventures in my community and probably others across Jamaica.

1) Car Alarm Insect

• As those of you who have called me in the evening, you may have noticed the loud beeping in the background. This is what I have deemed the car alarm insect. It is VERY loud and sounds like a car alarm going off.... maybe a microwave completion beep is more accurate, but it has the volume of a car alarm. It goes allllllllllll night. The good thing is that I got used to it the first night and I don't hear it anymore.

2) Mosquitoes

• Apparently I am delicious because I have more bites than I have ever had in my lifetime. The mosquitoes like to party! I think I have it figured out now though. This is my nightly routine. 1) Spray my room with bug spray leave to 10 min. 2) Get a new VEPE cartridge and plug in the warmer. It's like a plug in air freshener but for mosquitoes. 3) Apply liberal dosage of spray. With these three steps, I have cut down the bites to 1 or two a night. I'm thinking of putting up my net, but there's nothing to hang it on. Something to do in the next couple nights.

3) Other bugs

• Um yeah, the bugs here are big, bold and beautiful? Um maybe the first two. I'll get used to them eventually.

4) CRAB WARS!!!

• My host family has three dogs, and the 2nd night here it started raining heavily. This apparently flooded out the underground living quarters of crabs. Yes, underground crabs. They are the size of dungenous if not a little smaller, and for a good 6 days after the rain, they came up from underground and started harassing the dogs. The dogs FLIPPED out and barked and barked fighting the crabs. This happened 3-4 times a night for usually around 30 min a shot. The fight always ended with a "Crunch" indicating that the dogs won and got a tasty meal. Apparently you can eat the underground crabs, but I have not been offered any.

So these have been my nights. I'll be able to get used to it, but it makes a fun story. The days have been spent at my site, working with my counterparts and principal. The principal has aggressive timelines for new equipment setup and older equipment re-imaging and repair, so these first few weeks are going to be busy! I got to take a couple side trips to some nice places so that was pretty nice. Sorry for no pics but I really don't want to look like a tourist. I tried to get pics of the crab wars, but the crabs always seemed to be out of frame. Sorry!