Living in a Zoo

My room is the insect and reptile exhibit with a few geckos, lizards, spiders, spasdic moths and blood sucking mosquitoes. A rotating special treat in that exhibit are the occasional rat or if it rains hard the man-eating centipedes (or what the locals call 100 footer - in the book Getting Stoned with Savages by Troost there is a hilarious anecdote on the subject that I highly recommend anyone to read for a fun easy read on Vanuatu) come out to put on a show. For the most part I get along with these creatures as we signed a verbal agreement – don’t hide in my bed and stay out of sight and I wont kill you – so far so good but every once in awhile I hear them or catch a glimpse but no harm done. On the grounds we’ve got 10s of dogs that like to sing in a chorus of barks every night – to my dismay. There are lines of chickens scattered around slowly scratching away every bit of ground searching for food. Suzy, the cat, can be found either hunting (hopefully for rats but she also occasionally chases her shadow) or she’s taking a nap in my lap. We also have dinosaurs – just kidding but truly this place does look like it was the set for Jurassic Part and at night the cows make this horrible noise that sounds like a roar of a dinosaur. Also at night you can hear the fruit bats in the mango trees. In the aquarium there are starfish, sharks, fish (and flying fish), snakes, crabs, dolphins, and more – I still need to go through the exhibit more times and I’ll let you know what else I find. It’s quite a place here in Vanuatu!

Suzy the crazy (and lazy as you can see) cat

My friend in the room - I call him Geiko and he likes to make a shrieking noise sometimes that's not always appreciated in the middle of the night