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| Blurry iPhone photo. |
Ever since we've moved to "the country" Manuel and I have made a lot of new friends. Every time I see a new… animal, I am often torn between fascination and disgust. I usually run to grab Man's iPhone, to document the experience with a blurry picture because I don't want to get close enough to take a good one. And they are usually in some dimly lit corner.
I was somewhat weaned into living with a ton of insects because we have an on-again-off-again relationship with a colony of ants that want to live in our kitchen. I really irrationally hate little ants because of the time they were living in my parents' pantry and I unwittingly ate a few who had snuck into my teddy grahams. They taste really bad. And once you've accidentally eaten them you start to notice their smell, too. These ants, however, are not so bad; they are about half the size of the normal little ants you would expect. Really, they're tiny. We call them "olmigas enanas" which literally translates to "dwarf ants" except that I find the word dwarf to be way funnier in Spanish. And the dwarf ants are pretty funny.
In the not funny category I would put cockroaches. We don't have a lot of these, but I do see maybe one a day. I've heard that cockroaches are notoriously hard to kill, but ours somehow are not. At first I actually refused to kill them, and every time I saw one I'd put a cup over it until Manuel came home to smash it. One of Manuel's friends tried to be understanding to my irrational behavior. "Even a cockroach is a life…" he said, verbally patting me on the shoulder. "But, no," I had to explain, "it's not that. I just don't want to get cockroach on my shoe." One day when I tried to direct Manuel to an upside-down cup in the kitchen he refused, tough love style. "Just put your shoe on it," he insisted. And I did. And now I can kill cockroaches independently.
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| A leaf bug. We've also seen stick bugs. |
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| My first araña pollito! iPhone (nighttime) photo quality! |
We started moving into the big leagues one night when we were gushing over the garden. "Oh, don't step on that spider," Manuel cautioned me. It was not a spider, it was like a rabbit. Okay, it wasn't that big, but it was about the width of the short side of the iPhone that I dared inch almost near it. And Man said it was probably a baby. Manuel had warned me about the giant spiders, but they are supposed to have a very peaceful nature. He also told me always to close the windows at night in case one might come in the house and scare me. But he was careful to say that scare was the worst thing they would do. They are called "araña pollito" and some Chileans keep them as pets. I haven't been lucky enough to see a grown-up one, but it is #2 on my most wanted list of things to see.
I do see a lot of scorpions. In my house. The first one I noticed was dead in the corner of the living room and I swept it up with the dust and the dog hair. Ody found the second one behind the couch and brought it out to play with it. It was dead, and I swept it up as well. Manuel says they are not dangerous, but he basically says that about all the crawly things that scare me. On average, I find 1-2 per week in the living room, and it really weirds me out. Where are they coming from? Except one night I saw one crawl in through the crack under the dining area door. I put a cup over it.
I always tell people that the hardest vocabulary to memorize, in my opinion, is food, plants, and animals. Food is hard because it changes from country to country. A tortilla in Mexico is flat, in El Salvador it's puffy (and arguably the best tortilla) and in Chile it's really just a big piece of bread. Plants are hard because they can get so specific. I know the words for grass (pasto), flower (flor), and tree (arbol), but after that it gets complicated. But I'm learning; a few weeks ago, I learned that a weeping willow is a "sauce llorón." Literally, a crying willow. Animals are difficult for the same reason. Spanish 101 gives you cat, dog, bird, and insect, but it's not very descriptive. (Side note: dog names are actually not very hard. Like labrador? Labrador. And English bulldog? Bulldog inglés. Except you pronounce it bool-doeg.) So when I'm whining to Manuel about some new pest, it's usually "Manuel! There's an… uhh… insect. In the bathroom." But again, I'm learning.
This lack of vocabulary was also mildly embarrassing when we went on a nature hike with his kids. "Mira! Una lagartija!" ("Look! A something!") They would point. I wasn't sure whether to look for a squirrel or a deer. Except that they don't have squirrels here and they actually would probably be really excited about one of those. I haven't seen any slugs, either, but Manuel says they exist. A lagartija is a lizard, and while it's still pretty basic vocabulary, it's better than pointing and shouting "a snake with legs!" Because then they would think that you're dumb, not realizing that you are just bad at Spanish.
I LOVE the lagartijas. In early January, I was really excited to see a little brown lizard skittering down the hill where the pool filter is. Two months later they are still pretty neat, but I've become somewhat desensitized to them. AND THEN. I was moving the garbage cans the other day when I heard a skittering. On the wall/fence there was the most beautiful lizard I have ever seen in real life and maybe even in pictures, too. It was medium-sized, with an green head that blended to an ocean blue tail, all speckled with black. I was completely transfixed. It was the best garbage day experience ever. And now, if I go out to the wall/fence at the right time of day (when the sun is shining on it) sometimes I see the little guy. He is really amazing and ranks #1 on my most wanted list of things to see.
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| It's a little hard to see, but the lagartija is on the wooden fence, the fourth log down. |
Manuel has a hawk friend. When we are barbecuing the hawk likes to sit in the trees nearby and Man throws meat for it. The first time Manuel did this I totally did not believe him that the hawk would eat it, but it did. It came down to where the meat was, picked it up, and flew way. We also have a family of quails that likes to graze in our front yard. And the other day a hummingbird flew into the kitchen. Manuel has a video of it. Manuel is like a brown St. Francis. He is always rescuing animals. Once he found a butterfly drowning in the pool. He saved it and held it in his hand until it dried out, unfolded its wings and flew away. We found out later that it was a super special type of butterfly, both sacred and endangered or something like that.  |
| The hawk drinking from the pool. |
We also have bunnies, but when you live in the campo, you stop thinking of them as cute little Peter Rabbits. The eat Manuel's lawn (it's his, he cares for it) and leave poop everywhere. And Bauzá is basically no good as a rabbit hunter. He sleeps inside all night and even if we put him out during dinner he mostly just sits on the porch and barks at nothing. I know I've said it before, but living in the country is a really special experience. Especially since I get to experience so much of it from the comfort of the indoors and can let Manuel handle the squirmy, hairy, and dirty stuff.
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Updates:
Since the writing of this post, I have seen a grown araña pollito. It was awesome, and huge. But also I have found a ton inside the house. It may have to do with the weather getting colder. I've stopped seeing the cockroaches and scorpions, so that's nice. In other news, I'm still selling cookies. Manuel is bringing them to work and selling a few dozen a day, and I'm baking basically every spare minute. It's good, I'm making a little extra money, and getting a ton of compliments about being an amazing cook, which helps the ego. And the cookies are being sold so fast that we haven't been able to eat more than one or two a day, so that's good for us, too.
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| A grown araña pollito. It is upside-down, not the photo. |
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| A teenage araña pollito that I found in Manuel's gym bag. |
