Crabs, Lice, Coconuts: The Manu'a Experience
The view from second beach. I'm lucky to be here, that's for sure. |
Frank the Crab
We have a crab named Frank, who lives in our kitchen in a
crack by the floor near the sink. It is important to note that cockroaches also
live near our sink, since the area is close to a food source and moist (moist
and cockroaches in one sentence? Gross, I know). Now, we live near the ocean
and are surrounded by crabs all around, so for us to name one, it must be for
something truly memorable and deserving of a name. Our initial reason for
naming Frank was because he would not die, no matter how many times we sprayed
him with cockroach spray or attempted to catch him with our broom, since he’s
fast and small and can fit into just about any crack.
Frank is not particularly good looking with his beady eyes
and gray shell, but we had an inkling that Frank was eating the cockroaches
near the sink, so after several attempts to kill the guy failed, we figured he
wasn’t bothering anyone and that we should just let him continue to live in our
kitchen. So, the other day, Erika and I are in the kitchen when she notices a
cockroach near the bottom of the floor, by the crack near the sink. We quickly
determine that a sandal may not kill the roach since he’s too close to the
crack and would run away, but the spray would do the job.
All of a sudden, as I’m holding the spray in my hand, about
to start walking over to the cockroach, a claw darts out of the sink, grabs the
cockroaches, and darts back inside! We now have official proof: we have a crab
named Frank who eats cockroaches and lives in our kitchen. A little story,
right, but a little funny, a little gross, a little bit of Manu’a.
How I got lice
Well, I cannot tell you how I got lice. But I had lice, most
likely from one of my kids since almost every child and teen here has lice (at
least the girls) and no one actually cares enough to try to get rid of the
lice. I had noticed my scalp had been a little itchy the past few days and at
first I attributed it to having a dry scalp since it’s always so hot out here.
But then, I had started feeling like there was something moving my hair.
Finally, I woke up in the morning and decided to see if I could brush anything
out with a thin brush that I had, just in case. And well, the rest is history:
I flipped my hair over and brushed just once, and the brush came out with a few
live lice!
Who would have thought that I, at 21 years of age, would get
lice? Haha! Welcome to Manu’a.
Here I would like to give a huge shoutout to Erika, my
roommate, who spent three hours that day combing out my hair (after I had
shampooed it with lice and washed all my sheets and clothes). It was a long and
painful process, combing out the live lice and nits—I probably had a couple
hundred nits in my hair. Nits are the shells that the lice hatch from, and
while the shampoo kills all the live lice, it doesn’t kill the lice still in
their shells, so you have to comb them out so they don’t hatch. The next day
was much faster and Erika spent only an hour combing out my hair, with many
fewer nits and almost no live lice. I spent the next week swimming and combing
out my hair every day just to get any nits we may have missed, and I’m pretty
sure now I’m lice-free. Paranoia remains though, so I keep checking my hair for
nits.
You’re probably wondering about my reaction to finding out I
had lice. For about 30 seconds, I freaked out. But I’ve been trying recently to
have an attitude adjustment, where if something bad or annoying happens to me,
I do my best (note: this is a work in progress) to stop myself from getting
stuck on the loop of “what if.” I knew I couldn’t change having lice at that
point, and worrying about how it happened or freaking out about it wouldn’t
have changed anything either. So I accepted the fact that I had lice and went
about googling and following through on Erika’s advice on how to best remove
them. This kept my stress levels at a minimum and helped me have a better day.
Trip to third beach
In case you haven’t seen it, check out my video about our
trip to third beach here. Third beach is the third of three increasingly remote
beaches. Even though the video looks like it was an easy hike, it’s not—it was
just too risky to take my phone out for pictures during the difficult part,
when we were climbing over rocks and coral and wading waist-deep in the ocean.
But it was totally worth it. When we got to second beach, we made a pit stop
and drank coconuts that we found on the beach. To open them, we threw the
greener ones against the tree until they cracked and the coconut water dribbled out underneath.
I couldn't resist taking a selfie. Third Beach in the background. |
You know the feeling of drinking coconuts on a sandy beach
almost untouched by other humans? The feeling of the bright, tropical sun on
your face, as you marvel at the endless horizon where a perfectly blue sky
spotted by white clouds meets an ocean of equal magnificence? You know the
feeling of having coconut water dripping down the front of your shirt and
cooling you off? The feeling of wondering how you ended up on a tiny island, of
all the places in the world? In those brief moments, I experienced each feeling
distinctly. It’s hard to rival. Lice and all, it’s been worth it.