3.9.24
Actually it’s not two bites, it’s hundreds of bites, but two which have a more interesting story than ‘I went to sleep and woke up covered in mosquito bites’, which is true. We are all going to sleep on a daily basis and all waking up covered in bites, despite bug spray. Tali has a mosquito net, so she has a smattering rather than a covering, but equally valid nonetheless.
To keep the suspense of the decent story bites, I’ll start with school, but i’ll just say that both the bites are related to me, both bites were a result of human error and combined, the biting-beings had 12 legs. Although two separate incidents.
So the kids started school last week. The school is called Menfis. It’s a rural school, meaning it caters for kids who live rurally around Chinchina and town kids.
Theoretically they leave the house at 7am. They get a lift with the two American kids staying here and the two kids who live here. Theoretically because this is the first day they’ve left at that time – today is already their 6th day. Previous days we’ve walked down later and I’ve pretty much stayed all day, doing my own version of settling in. I’ve jumped between Lotem and Negev’s class. Teva, bless her, has been on her own, mostly by choice. She would prefer not to understand than to have the embarrassment of a parent in her class. I’ve no doubt it will come back to bite me – thankfully metaphorically this time – another notch on the bar of why it’s so bad being the oldest.
It’s enlightening to sit in lessons. Not that I’ve sat in lessons in their UK schools, but I think it’s quite different. There is a lot of copying off the board into exercise books and there is a lot of colouring in, particularly for Lotem and Negev. Teachers have their mobile phones with them. Negev’s teacher uses it for google translate, Lotem’s for slightly less class relevant things. It feels like the learning they do takes up a short amount of time and the rest is time filling, but what do I know? Maybe there is a method behind it about fine motor skills. The local kids do seem to write quite well, but again, what do I know about early years education. I’m way more versed in the Mental Capacity Act. Less useful at this juncture but it has its place.
Theoretically, again, the school is bilingual, but at this point that is more of an aspiration than an actuality. As such I have been honing my google translate skills.
The hardest part for the kids is the day length.
School runs from 7:20 to 4:30. There is a two hour break for lunch – this is for kids who go home for lunch – but it’s a long break with not much going on and a lot of potential socialising in a foreign language.
I’m currently sat in the school writing and I haven’t seen any of the kids for almost an hour. Massive progress. I’m only cursing my lack of coffee. Usually I bring a vat with me, but the unexpected addition of changing an earring, a lost earring an infected ear, the wrong socks, the wrong pants, the wrong trousers foiled my coffee plan.
Strike that, I tempted fate. The calm was only that the storm couldn’t find me. I’m now at the back of Lotem’s classroom, she’s coming to me every 2 minutes and my patience is ebbing. I am reminding myself that this whole thing is my idea and them being immersed in a Spanish environment was the plan. Again, this falls into the category of big picture dreams over details. I’m breathing deep.
The school is next to a stables. The kids love horses, but have little experience. It’s not a riding stables, more a stables where people pay to keep their horses there. The main door is open and we’ve popped in a few times to try and catch the elusive owner. Each time we have a little chat with/stroke of the horses, carefully letting them sniff our hands, get to know us. On Friday we passed an amazing couple of hours there. Still no owner, but it seemed we were allowed to roam freely between the 20 or so horses – all in their own stable. I absolutely loved it too. I’ve never had so much time chatting with horses and trying to understand them. Hermes, a very scared young horse, wouldn’t let us near him. By the time we left Hermes was rubbing into our hands and trying to have a little nibble. He seemed way less skittish. We were all excited to go back on Monday. Having the joy of the horses nearby was a great balancer of the heavy weight that school brings. So the disappointment was great when the stables were locked. We knocked only to be told that we aren’t allowed to free roam in case the kids get hurt. Understandable, but there goes our lunchtime and post school relief. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet though. I’m still hoping that Tali will work her magic and manage to get us something organised. Or at least me!
So if you have been working on the bite riddle and thought that four of the legs of the biting beings belonged to a horse, you are mistaken.
As you know, if you’ve read the previous installment, we are living in a garage with a range of neighbourly insects. Mostly mosquitoes – the cause of the hundreds of bites; cockroaches, the cause of zero bites but many shudders; moths – one so large its wing span was only a little smaller than my handspan. We’ve seen a few spiders, but I was woken up the other night by a family member who had spotted what she thought was a tarantula. A couple days later I saw the eight-legged creature – definitely not a tarantula, but a decent size, abdomen and thorax (thank you Miss Duggan/Dr.Goddard A-level biology) probably the size of one of Lotem’s little fingers, with long legs. I just left it to it. It was hanging out and not bothering me or anyone. Last Friday night the kids spotted the spider and wouldn’t play downstairs whilst they knew it was there. So I tried to move it with a piece of A4 paper. Spiders are fast. It kept escaping and it didn’t weave a web for me to remove it by. It was clearly scared and then whilst trying to catch it again with the paper I smacked my head into the concrete stairs, resulting in the very adult and mature reaction of screwing up the piece of paper flinging it on the floor and ’announcing’ the spider needs just to be ignored. Disregarding my own advice, when the pain in my head lessened and I went back downstairs, the spider was still stationary in the middle of the floor. The easiest thing seemed to be just to pick up the spider and chuck it outside. So that’s what I did. And that’s when I felt two spiky jaws sink into my forefinger. That’s when i shouted, scared the crap out of the kids and ran to the sink to wash my finger. Possibly to wash out the venom? It was really quite sore and the pain remained. I literally have no idea what I was thinking.
I furiously looked up poisonous spiders in Colombia and was relieved not to see my spider on the list. I then got to work persuading my kids that I wasn’t going to die and that spiders are fine, so long as you leave them alone and don’t try and pick them up. Bizarrely they were not convinced. They now require company to the toilet and I am required to wear my glasses. What use is a visually impaired parent in the face of a wolf spider – look them up on Wikipedia. They are pretty cool. Handy additions for pest control – especially of cockroaches. We are in need of way more wolf spiders. I did breathe a huge sigh of relief though, that my stupidity of picking up a large, unknown spider with my bare hands ended as well as it did. I’ve taken the lesson on board.
Last weekend brimmed with lessons. The next one came in quick succession. The following day an unusual thing happened. I felt like going for a run. I really don’t like running. I can run if I’m training for something, like the Women’s Rugby 7׳s European Championships, but for fun and general fitness, it’s not for me. Sadly it’s now over a decade since I trained for anything. However, owing to my apparently extreme nature, I am tempted by trail running, fell running up and down mountains or anything that demands something technical from me, so I’m not just thinking about how horrible running is.
We are living in Andes foothills, ergo tempting. So off I went for a short run. After 1.5 mins of uphill running, probably less than 100m I was pretty much done, but I pressed on. A couple of mins later I had made it to the top to a little tower and the main path ended. I spotted a perfect narrow path hugging the side of the hill with coffee plants above me and below a drop with bamboo plants the circumference of my arms, and my arms are schtolzy – aren’t they mum – so picture large circumference. Very shortly I saw a house nestled at the end of the path and a sleeping black dog. My non risk averse brain may have sent me a small warning to stop and turn around, but either the warning was too slow, or too quiet, or I ignored it or my overheated unfit brain couldn’t process the information. Well, it certainly started processing seconds later. Four dogs ran at me barking and jumping and yapping. I think I tried to back away slowly, I think I raised my arms in surrender trying to say calmly it’s ok, I mean no harm and I’m going. They were very close and very jumpy, particularly the one I’d woken up. I’m not sure if it caught my generous love handle on the way down from a jump and a bark, or it intentionally bit me. I think the former, because I don’t have huge chunk missing, more of a canine tooth- like puncture.
The owner came out and stopped the dogs. I must have seemed a little shaken up, unsurprisingly. I tried to communicate I’m sorry and tried to leave, but she kept talking to me. I took out google translate and realised she was asking if the dogs had bitten me. I nodded and lifted my shirt. Her expression was one of dismay. I tried to leave but she said ‘infeczia’. My lateral thinking brain understood. I followed her into her simple house where she poured disinfectant on the wound I’d not seen myself yet. She told me to sit and gave me some juice. Her name was Berta-Fanny and I have her number to let her know if I want t run again. I do, but I don’t and I won’t, at least not in that direction.
Lesson two, back away from a sleeping guard dogs before they wake up.
I’ve had my rabies jab, I scrubbed the wound , cleaned it again and I’m pleased to say almost a week later it is healing nicely. A great bruise for my bruise album, but definitely no infection.
Two lucky escapes, in two days, from two ill-made decisions.
Both events paled into insignificance to the devastating news from Israel we woke up to on Sunday. Six hostages who managed to stay alive for almost a year, 20m underground in conditions I can’t imagine were murdered. My heart and soul goes out to the remaining hostages and the family and friends of these murdered hostages.
I hope for the imminent release of the remaining hostages and for lighter times ahead.