Two Legs Are Better Than Six

Winter has come to Ubud. This is meant to be the dry and cool season, though you wouldn’t know it by stepping out your door. Maybe the cold wet season. Damp and moldy season. Season when bugs literally come out of the woodwork.

Due to the, I’m told, unseasonable rains we’ve been having lately, I’ve been experiencing more than my casual weekly encounters with the multi-legged beings with whom I share my home.

Usually when the sun is out in full strength, the daily heat keeps insects far from sight, burrowed into whichever hellish corners they prefer to abide. A sort of tentative agreement is struck between this temperate zone Canadian and the jungle natives: they stay where I can’t see them, I pretend they aren’t there, and no one gets hurt.

The recent turn of bad weather has tipped the balance. My can of multi-purpose Baygon bug spray stands at the ready, promising to kill or maim spider, mosquito, midgie or roach. I scour my room each time I return home, fingers anxiously poised on the trigger, shuffling boxes and clothes just waiting for a scuttle, a skitter, the smallest sign of insect life.

This is war.



Any Last Words?



Three cockroaches have met their fate in as many days. There was Jandle-geddon by the rubbish bins on Thursday when the enemy made a last moment attempt to storm the kitchen before being decimated by my flip flop. The battle of Meg vs Roach-Under-My-Sink on Friday, where a generous cloud of Baygon was employed to rouse the enemy from his foxhole behind my toiletry bins. Today, I returned home to find my foe boldly resting in plain sight, practically sneering at me from fractured eyes until my dust pan came crashing down to seal the victory in my favour.

But I know they’re out there. It’s an uneasy truce as I tuck into bed at night, my electric mosquito repellant dispenser plugged in beside my bed. They know I am momentarily subdued with the lights out, vulnerable in the dark where by nature they conduct the majority of their business.

On top of the issue of unwanted houseguests, my human friends and I are also battling the silent threat of mold. Many of our homes have been built in areas any first rate engineer would shake their head at. Beside rivers. Over rice fields. Nestled into hill sides below Balinese family compounds with questionable water drainage practices.



A soft white fuzz has begun to flower from the base of my walls. I have set in face covered, bowls of bleach and sponge in hand, only to return three days later to find that any ground gained has been reclaimed.



All of my personal possessions have taken on the musty odour of jungle living. A clean dress hung in the wardrobe for more than a week requires a rewash. My most recent purchase is a bamboo unit, where at least in the open air my folded clothes have the potential to extend their shelf life. My ceiling fan, blackened around the edges of its blades, spins guard every day, trying to keep the air circulating and the humidity of my room at a minimum.



One begins to long for the hot heavy days of months gone by, when clothes could be hung from lines in the sun to bake to a crisp in half an hour. When mattresses could be leaned against a house to air, and a good stiff breeze was all you needed to reclaim scarves and sarongs alike.

As I write, an uneasy peace has been temporarily negotiated. The rains have subsided. It’s 5:30am, a time when the house is usually given over to its night loving occupants. My bedside lamp stands guard as I type. For the moment, its artificial rays cast a glow of protection around me.



The floor is littered with bodies that did not survive the night. For various reasons, their insect lives have escaped them. A final fluttering of wings. A cessation of multiple creeping legs. Whether they met their fate in the fumes of my plug-in repellant, or became the half eaten snack of my beloved nesting geckos, their blood thirsty whine will shiver my spine no more.



For now, all is quiet.

But peace can’t last forever.



"The only problem with bumping into a cockroach on Friday, is the fact that you have no idea where it has been on Wednesday."