The other night, uninvited guests paid Lydia and me a visit. We were exhausted after climbing Kit Mikayi, visiting the Lisuka Primary School, and attending a meeting at the Sianda Primary School. After returning to St. Anna’s Guesthouse and taking a brief nap, I awoke and noticed a grayish-brown looking object on my mosquito net. I saw one. Then another. Then another. These objects were so small; I disregarded the fact that they were insects. UNTIL…I looked up at the light and saw an infestation of……………..GNATS! There were too many to count. They were flying around the light. I almost screamed.
Our natural reaction was to spray bug spray around the light, so the bugs would die. We assumed this would control this issue. Boy, were we wrong! We went on to dinner, and realized that it was now pouring rain (a bug’s haven).
After dinner with Lindsey, Laura and Leah, Lydia and I returned to our room to assess the situation. When we returned, the bugs were stuck to the light. Thus, we thought it would be wise to get a broom from the front desk to remove the bugs. When we got to the broom and tried to remove the bugs, all we found was one obstacle after the other. The light kept shutting off. The broom was too thick to remove the bugs from certain areas of the light; or, the dead bugs were falling on our bed sheets. We decided to use the mosquito nets to remove the bugs from the sides where the broom could not reach. Genius idea, right? WRONG! We were able to remove some, but not all of the bug matter.
However, this was okay in our minds, because we would simply go back to the front desk and request new sheets. I was able to get another towel that day, so getting new sheets should be a piece of cake…or so I thought. However, we Americans were in for a rude awakening. When we went down to the front desk, Didakus greeted us. We explained the situation to him, and requested new sheets and a new mosquito net. However, we quickly learned that like Dorothy, we were not in Kansas (or Indianapolis, Massachusetts, Mississippi, or North Carolina) anymore. The comforts of home were a distant memory. Unlike the United States where we have washing machines, things are hand-washed in Kenya. Thus, it would not be as simple as calling a housekeeper and getting new sheets delivered. Nor was there a linen closet with spare sheets. Didakus genuinely felt concern for our plight, and shook out the buggy sheets, telling us that they were “like new.”
Lydia and I realized that in Kenya, quick and fast is not the order of the day. We had to accept that we could turn our sheets in, but we would not receive new ones until the following day when they cleaned our room. We chose to prioritize, each taking the sheet that was not affected by the gnatstorm, and sleeping on our beds. Returning to our room, we tossed, turned and tossed some more. And somewhere in that time, we got brief amounts of inconsistent sleep. The evening provided a learning experience both about Kenya and about us. In experiences like this, it can be easy to get upset or irritated. But sometimes, you simply have to laugh or just accept a situation for what it is. As Americans, we are accustomed to things operating on our terms. However, we must now adjust to life on someone else’s terms. God blessed us with a wonderful opportunity to connect with Didakus, who showed us that help comes in many forms, and that the answer to a problem may not look the way you envision. And although we awoke the next day, exhausted from uncomfortable sleep and unsure of when we would get new sheets, this was a blessed experience, in visible and unseen ways. Thus in the end, the experience was GNAT so bad after all.
Nice pun at the end. The bugs, you've got to love them. I learned to cut the lights out and just trust the net. BTW, don't sleep with your arm or elbow touching the net, that will go bad for you.
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