A story about bugs:
When I was in the Peace Corps I lived in an area where there was no electricity (at that time) for many miles. There was a road, rice fields for a mile or so on either side, and beyond that forest and swamp, the forest mostly dense second-growth stuff that had grown back after the original forest was cut, maybe 20-30 years before. About the time I arrived a foreign-funded irrigation project was approved in the area, and a bunch of young engineers built a compound outside of town. They put in a big generator, and to further their recreational ambitions, they put in a lighted tennis court. They didn't know much about tennis, and built the light-posts way too close to the court, which made for some interesting incidents, but that is another story.
On the day it was all done they threw a big party, quite an event: first electric lights to be seen in the area. When darkness descended, they fired up the generator, and the light of technology shone over the jungle.
The jungle loved it.
Every moth, beetle, flying ant, and god knows what other sort of creature within 5 miles was around those lights within minutes. Moths like sheets of newspaper, horned beetles the size of your fist. More insects than I've ever imagined could possibly exist. You couldn't step without crunching.
Pretty soon the bats showed up for the feast, and the frogs, toads, lizards, snakes, and every other kind of bug-eating bugger.
It was a pretty surreal scene. We never did play much tennis at night, though the engineers, being practical, built a fishpond beside the court and turned the lights on in the evening to feed the fish. Used to lose balls in there regularly.
I knew a guy who was in the Marines and was bitten on the hand by a horrendously poisonous snake, on Okinawa. He was playing tennis, and trying to retrieve a ball from the bushes.
Another story. |
