April 19, 2011 – 8pm
If there is such a thing as raining brimstone and fire tonight was it. Words will never do justice to what I am experiencing right now. I finally fell asleep only to be awoken to winds that make the California Santa Ana’s look like a slight breeze. When you are living in a mud box with a tin roof held on by 2 inch nails secured into split trees for beams the noise is not something to be described. The sound of the wind cutting through the tin and where the beams come through the house to the outside is like a whirlwind. And just when I thought it couldn’t sound any louder or worse, the thunder and lightning started…then came the rains. The sound of the rain on the tin is deafening to say the least. It sounds like it’s hailing golf balls but I’m pretty sure it’s just rain. Hard rain. I can’t tell the noise from the wind, from the thunder, from the rain. It all is just blending together and it’s loud.
And in the midst of all of this someone (horny old guy) comes to my door. Waiting for me to get up and out of my tent, cursing all the way, getting dressed a third time tonight. I have been sitting in my tent wanting to get up and look anyway but afraid to move because it sounds like the roof is going to come off as if the thin screen of my mosquito tent is going to keep me from harm. When I get to the door, just like earlier, he wanted to check on me and see if I was in bed and OK. WELL I WAS!!! Thanks for asking. No sense whatsoever. Soaking wet, having to walk around holding his head so it wouldn’t rip off in the rain to make sure everyone is OK.
Now THAT was thunder…!!
When the rained slowed down I finally fell asleep. The whole storm was probably a total of 3 hours. It seemed like much longer. When the noise is so deafening that you have to cover your ears with your pillows or put in earplugs just to hear yourself think time moves very slowly. I woke at 3am to the sound of something wrestling with itself or with something else outside my tent on my mat. Of course since very little noise makes me freak out I got my headlamp out right away to see what it was I don’t know what’s better…knowing or not knowing. Does “what I don’t know won’t hurt me” apply in a case like this? I’m thinking it has to be pretty big to make noise when it’s moving around. Maybe the 3-4 inch long cockroaches they have hear. Only I haven’t seen any of those since I’ve been here. Then again, they usually hang out at night in the nyegen and you and me both know I don’t go into the nyegen at night.
Anyway I couldn’t find anything that was making the noise. It stopped and I fell back to sleep…until 5:30 when the wind, rain, thunder and lightning started again. I was just as happy now that it was almost getting light to lay in bed and listen to it. I still wasn’t feeling good and as long as it was raining no one would come by to bother me. It only lasted an hour or so. I’m still not feeling well. I just can’t seem to drink enough to get myself rehydrated. I got out of bed to find my room covered with termites. Not sure where they came from and how they got in there but I’m thinking, since I heard so much about the termite problems, that they’ve been in my room the whole time. There is something about the rain that made them come out from wherever they were in hiding. Probably the beams in the ceiling…which makes me feel even less confident that the roof won’t blow off someday. Especially since this was just a little storm. Rainy season will start the end of May. It will rain and the wind will blow like it did last night but for hours on end. I spend the next little while killing and sweeping up termites.
April 21, 2011
So again tonight I hear something thrashing around on my mat outside my tent. I have to figure out what is making this noise. I got my headlamp and from the safety and security of my room checked all around my tent with my headlamp only to find a small black beetle that must have a body like a brick because that what was making all the racket. It was trying to climb and fly up the wall and just fluttered about until it fell to the ground. That’s what’s been keeping me up. Unfortunately while looking for this creature I found a big black spider on the wall right behind where my head is. Thankfully I have this tent to protect me. Finally I fall asleep.
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