For a few months, I lived in India. It was an amazing and eye opening experience in many ways, but one of the things I remember most about the adventure were the bugs. At night, I used a mosquito net, but I could still feel bugs crawling on me. I tried to tell myself I was paranoid but, actually, there were bugs crawling all over me. Every few minutes or so I’d nervously smack a different part of my body, and in the morning I was amazed I’d managed to fall asleep.
The irony is that I was living with Jain nuns, a group whose main doctrine is nonviolence. So I could never kill the bugs in front of them! But it’s very hard to be alone in India. Even at night, I slept in a room with six or seven other women. I wanted to respect their tenets. I like nonviolence too, but I don’t like malaria. Plus, evolution had favored the native Indians, and the bugs weren’t biting them. They were only after me. It left me no choice but to wage a silent, mock pacifist war.
A few weeks into the war, when it was clear that the bugs were the victors, I grew suspicious of my mosquito net. I removed it from my bed and discarded it on an empty table, examining it over the course of several days. Each time I passed it, there were more bugs frolicking in the net. I had far fewer bites after that because all of the bugs in the room were attracted to the mosquito net that now served as some kind of bug jungle gym.
One morning, I woke up with a large blister that spanned the length of my collar bone. My first thought was that I was dying. (Mom, if you’re reading this, I never told you this story because I didn’t want to hear you say, “I told you that you’d die if you went to the Third World.”) But then I rationalized that it couldn’t be so bad. Large blisters that appear during sleep must be the most common thing in the world in India. I’ll tell one of the nuns, and she’ll say, “Oh, I just had one of those last week!” and we’ll both have a good laugh.
I left my room, and the first nun who saw me nearly fell over in hysteria, shrieking and pointing at my neck. I did consider panicking at that point.
I was quickly taken to a doctor, who reacted much the same way as the nun. That added slightly to my hysteria.
Then a strange thing happened. Everyone in the room suddenly stopped panicking—except me—I just had to increase my stress level to keep the panic levels in the room at a constant. They spoke in Hindi, and from what little I understood, the doctor said that it was probably a bug bite, and everyone in the room agreed it probably was. I think the word “probably” is common in the medical field, but it didn’t disturb me as much when doctors said it to me in the First World.
Then, as far as I could tell, the conversation no longer concerned me. Everyone just started visiting and talking gaily. Then I was given medicine that would cure a “probably a bug bite” and sent away. And somehow I was more comforted when other people were panicking with me.
The medicine worked, though, so my closed-minded American doubts were unfounded.
This incident was a small bug battle. I had no idea that the bug war had not even started. It was around October when the bugs attacked with vengeance. Every night, as soon as the sun fell, the air was thick with the blood suckers. We had to turn off all of the lights in utter submission. I remember staying up one night, working at a computer after dark, because I didn’t yet understand the severity of the attack. I had turned off all lights, thinking that I’d outsmarted the bugs. As soon as darkness fell, there were literally hundreds of flying critters swarming around the light from my monitor, nibbling at the flesh on my hands. I have never seen anything like those three weeks in India when everyone, even the nuns, went to bed at seven while the bug storm raged.
Sometimes at night, there’s a small piece of India swarming around our outside light. My husband and I often play a game of racing to enter the house and closing the door before any bugs can infiltrate. Sometimes I think that if I continue practicing in these smaller scale battles, I may one day be ready to return to India and reclaim victory against my hairy, winged opponents. And this time the Jain nuns will not be there to protect them.
The irony is that I was living with Jain nuns, a group whose main doctrine is nonviolence. So I could never kill the bugs in front of them! But it’s very hard to be alone in India. Even at night, I slept in a room with six or seven other women. I wanted to respect their tenets. I like nonviolence too, but I don’t like malaria. Plus, evolution had favored the native Indians, and the bugs weren’t biting them. They were only after me. It left me no choice but to wage a silent, mock pacifist war.
A few weeks into the war, when it was clear that the bugs were the victors, I grew suspicious of my mosquito net. I removed it from my bed and discarded it on an empty table, examining it over the course of several days. Each time I passed it, there were more bugs frolicking in the net. I had far fewer bites after that because all of the bugs in the room were attracted to the mosquito net that now served as some kind of bug jungle gym.
One morning, I woke up with a large blister that spanned the length of my collar bone. My first thought was that I was dying. (Mom, if you’re reading this, I never told you this story because I didn’t want to hear you say, “I told you that you’d die if you went to the Third World.”) But then I rationalized that it couldn’t be so bad. Large blisters that appear during sleep must be the most common thing in the world in India. I’ll tell one of the nuns, and she’ll say, “Oh, I just had one of those last week!” and we’ll both have a good laugh.
I left my room, and the first nun who saw me nearly fell over in hysteria, shrieking and pointing at my neck. I did consider panicking at that point.
I was quickly taken to a doctor, who reacted much the same way as the nun. That added slightly to my hysteria.
Then a strange thing happened. Everyone in the room suddenly stopped panicking—except me—I just had to increase my stress level to keep the panic levels in the room at a constant. They spoke in Hindi, and from what little I understood, the doctor said that it was probably a bug bite, and everyone in the room agreed it probably was. I think the word “probably” is common in the medical field, but it didn’t disturb me as much when doctors said it to me in the First World.
Then, as far as I could tell, the conversation no longer concerned me. Everyone just started visiting and talking gaily. Then I was given medicine that would cure a “probably a bug bite” and sent away. And somehow I was more comforted when other people were panicking with me.
The medicine worked, though, so my closed-minded American doubts were unfounded.
This incident was a small bug battle. I had no idea that the bug war had not even started. It was around October when the bugs attacked with vengeance. Every night, as soon as the sun fell, the air was thick with the blood suckers. We had to turn off all of the lights in utter submission. I remember staying up one night, working at a computer after dark, because I didn’t yet understand the severity of the attack. I had turned off all lights, thinking that I’d outsmarted the bugs. As soon as darkness fell, there were literally hundreds of flying critters swarming around the light from my monitor, nibbling at the flesh on my hands. I have never seen anything like those three weeks in India when everyone, even the nuns, went to bed at seven while the bug storm raged.
Sometimes at night, there’s a small piece of India swarming around our outside light. My husband and I often play a game of racing to enter the house and closing the door before any bugs can infiltrate. Sometimes I think that if I continue practicing in these smaller scale battles, I may one day be ready to return to India and reclaim victory against my hairy, winged opponents. And this time the Jain nuns will not be there to protect them.
