cockroach coffee and other delights

Not to gross you out or anything—or to make you think I’ve completely lost any standards I once possessed—but I most definitely had a cup of cockroach coffee. No, this is not some Malagasy cultural thing. No, no. What that means is a cockroach was unfortunate enough to make the inside of the upper half of my Italian coffee maker. And I in turn was unfortunate enough not to check. I put the coffee grounds and water into the bottom half, threw it on the stove, balanced on two forks conveniently making the burner small enough to hold it. It wasn’t until I’d poured out all the coffee and looked inside to check (you can tell what is and isn’t important to check for me) and noticed that little body squirming. Actually, I think it just rolled, not squirmed. There’s no way it was still alive. In any case, I figured the dead body was in the pot and the coffee was in my cup. Not touching, right? It’s like a warped time-twisting version of the 10-second rule. All I can say is that I am NOT the type of girl to waste a good cup of coffee.

Besides, some tiny insects (species unknown) were in the flour I used to make tortillas for lunch right before that cup of coffee. THEY didn’t cross any lines because you COOK tortillas, and in MY mind, anything cooked is automatically cleansed of any impurities.

I consider this all an important reminder that I am getting enough protein over here.

On a similar note, there are new cockroaches in town. There are golden, but I do not want to immediately group them with the shower cockroaches, because I don’t know them personally yet. In any case, they apparently had a breeding party in one of my spices. I’m not sure which, since they turned what was left of it black. Who knows, maybe they nested in cinnamon—or was it oregano? The world may never know.

The point is, these little buggers (less of a pun than a reminder of the word’s origins) creep and crawl everywhere. Then again, they’re still babies and thus unnoticeable—and gone if you blow air at them just once. Also, I prefer them to the mouse droppings I often find scattered. Wow, you must think I’m disgusting. But what do you want me to do? I cannot spray my town for all things smaller than my hand.

Officially and for the record, it is unpleasant to spend close to a month in another town because your country’s having a political crisis. Living in a cramped hotel room aside, it means you have to re-settle into your quiet town. Which you already had to do when you first moved here. And again after summer vacation. And yet again after your US trip. And when you only have four more months to go, with two trips to Tana necessary in the middle of all that, you feel a little homeless or lost or something uncomfortable. And it doesn’t help when someone you were close to left the country for good (ah, what to do when service comes to an end—and it’s staggered—not like college graduation—people slowly dropping out of your world).

So now you understand why that cup of cockroach coffee was so necessary. Sometimes a girl needs those little things that make her happy. For me that’s coffee. And no cockroach can mess with that.