Bayawak in bucolic life
August 17, 2002 | 12:00am
What animal did this? I wondered as I contemplated the round hole in my screen at my eye level. Im not a short woman. Did it make its way in or out of this hole? "Cut a piece of flypaper and patch this hole from the inside." The next day the fly paper was unstuck on three sides, the hole was bigger and I knew no better. "Use bigger paper and patch on both sides. Lets see what happens," I instructed my maid Ana. I dont know what I was thinking but I was leaving for an appointment in Manila and had no time to fuss. I just wanted to look authoritative, like I knew the answers to all of lifes problems.
When I returned home midweek the screen panel below the one I had been contemplating sported a hole about four times bigger than the original one. My heart lurched then pounded. This was not a critter. I was dealing with a creature. An agitated Ana showed me picture frames knocked over in my bedroom, ornamental bottles knocked into the bathtub and broken, and my bar of soap scratched with mysterious marks. These "footprints" ruled out snakes. "I think its the lizard weve been seeing in the garden," Ana said breathlessly, "and you cannot imagine what bad luck that brings. I asked the healer in the village and she says that is really bad luck for you. Its like you got money and then it turned to stone. And you know what? All the geckos here are sounding off much earlier in the afternoon..." meaning something malevolent and scary happening here. Here I cast her my best and sharpest stop-it-youre-getting-hysterical look. She forces herself to calm down. "Anyway, Ive seen it. Its a bayawak (iguana). It likes to lie on the roof (I have a thatch roof) over the pond. Its been eating the birds. Dont you notice how quiet it is now? The bayawak has scared off the birds."
Before I leave for Manila again I take her outside and tell her my theory. "I think it climbs up this tree to the second floor roof and then gets into my studio through that gap see the gap between roof and wall? Then it goes down that hole in the ceiling that hasnt been covered by our contractor yet and then the bayawak has the run of the second floor because no one sleeps there when I am in Manila and Ive been away a lot. You must sleep there and make noise."
She didnt sleep there but when she went up early to check, she surprised the bayawak under my bed. She said it wouldnt go away until after she had uttered this prayer she knew. On the spot I decided to stay in Manila longer. I dont want to sleep in a room with a bayawak in it. My friends, much amused, tell me its what I get for moving to the country, for having a thatch roof. Bucolic? Bayawak? Didnt you see the connection? They tease.
I do the one thing I do well. I give my contractor another ultimatum on the ceiling so we can block the bayawaks access. Miraculously my contractor responds immediately, like he didnt spend a year dragging his feet on this one. I think he heard the warning in my voice: I will write about you and tell everyone not to hire you. Ana then reports that the ceiling has been closed. The iguanas have no more access to my bedroom. Now three of them regularly sunbathe on the roof that overhangs the pond. Yes, you read right, not one iguana, THREE! "Dont make them comfortable, theyll settle in. You have to make them unhappy. Scare them," I instruct from Manila, where I consider buying a gun just to scare the darn things away. Since Im not decided on that option, I surf the Net looking for information on iguanas, something that might help.
I visit The Green Iguana Lounge and something that wants to be the ultimate web site for green iguana owners. Apparently they are pets in the US. The lady who runs the web site prepared a paper to deliver at the launch of World Iguana Day but no one showed up (not even a green iguana) so she put the paper on the Net. One also senses much unhappiness and low-grade conflict simmering among iguana owners. Somewhere in those cyberbushes a plot for a sinister cold-blooded B-movie is brewing.
In the meantime I learn that green iguanas are vegetarians but, according to Ana and Pedro, bayawak eat meat, chickens, birds, furry creatures. Theyre not touching my fish. Arnel, my gardener, plans to trap them using rotting meat as bait. Maybe green iguanas are not bayawak. Maybe theyre green because theyre vegetarian and bayawak are brown because theyre carnivores.
"Theyre not harmful," I tell Ana on the phone. "Some people in the US keep them as pets."
"No, maam," she says. "They have poison in their tails. Where I come from we make sure we dont come in contact with their tail because if it touches you you get the shrinking disease. You lose weight then you get smaller and smaller until you die." Sometimes I think Ana ghostwrote Alice in Wonderland for Lewis Carroll. Maybe I should throw my body in the path of the bayawaks tail so I can lose all the weight Ive put on since I stopped smoking.
"They refuse to move when I shoo them," Ana says. She is convinced they are evil creatures come to get me.
"Its because they think that if they dont move youll think theyre not there. You know, the frog trick? They think they look like stones. You have to attack them and make them uncomfortable," I say, wondering where I got this information. I can tell from Anas desultory, "Really?" that she doesnt believe me.
One week later, I know what kind of animal bore those holes through my screens but I really dont know what to do about them. If you know, please send me e-mail at lilypad@skyinet.net.
Or you may want to join the writing class that starts on Saturday, September 7, 2 to 5 in the afternoon at the Filipinas Heritage Library. Then e-mail me for more info.
When I returned home midweek the screen panel below the one I had been contemplating sported a hole about four times bigger than the original one. My heart lurched then pounded. This was not a critter. I was dealing with a creature. An agitated Ana showed me picture frames knocked over in my bedroom, ornamental bottles knocked into the bathtub and broken, and my bar of soap scratched with mysterious marks. These "footprints" ruled out snakes. "I think its the lizard weve been seeing in the garden," Ana said breathlessly, "and you cannot imagine what bad luck that brings. I asked the healer in the village and she says that is really bad luck for you. Its like you got money and then it turned to stone. And you know what? All the geckos here are sounding off much earlier in the afternoon..." meaning something malevolent and scary happening here. Here I cast her my best and sharpest stop-it-youre-getting-hysterical look. She forces herself to calm down. "Anyway, Ive seen it. Its a bayawak (iguana). It likes to lie on the roof (I have a thatch roof) over the pond. Its been eating the birds. Dont you notice how quiet it is now? The bayawak has scared off the birds."
Before I leave for Manila again I take her outside and tell her my theory. "I think it climbs up this tree to the second floor roof and then gets into my studio through that gap see the gap between roof and wall? Then it goes down that hole in the ceiling that hasnt been covered by our contractor yet and then the bayawak has the run of the second floor because no one sleeps there when I am in Manila and Ive been away a lot. You must sleep there and make noise."
She didnt sleep there but when she went up early to check, she surprised the bayawak under my bed. She said it wouldnt go away until after she had uttered this prayer she knew. On the spot I decided to stay in Manila longer. I dont want to sleep in a room with a bayawak in it. My friends, much amused, tell me its what I get for moving to the country, for having a thatch roof. Bucolic? Bayawak? Didnt you see the connection? They tease.
I do the one thing I do well. I give my contractor another ultimatum on the ceiling so we can block the bayawaks access. Miraculously my contractor responds immediately, like he didnt spend a year dragging his feet on this one. I think he heard the warning in my voice: I will write about you and tell everyone not to hire you. Ana then reports that the ceiling has been closed. The iguanas have no more access to my bedroom. Now three of them regularly sunbathe on the roof that overhangs the pond. Yes, you read right, not one iguana, THREE! "Dont make them comfortable, theyll settle in. You have to make them unhappy. Scare them," I instruct from Manila, where I consider buying a gun just to scare the darn things away. Since Im not decided on that option, I surf the Net looking for information on iguanas, something that might help.
I visit The Green Iguana Lounge and something that wants to be the ultimate web site for green iguana owners. Apparently they are pets in the US. The lady who runs the web site prepared a paper to deliver at the launch of World Iguana Day but no one showed up (not even a green iguana) so she put the paper on the Net. One also senses much unhappiness and low-grade conflict simmering among iguana owners. Somewhere in those cyberbushes a plot for a sinister cold-blooded B-movie is brewing.
In the meantime I learn that green iguanas are vegetarians but, according to Ana and Pedro, bayawak eat meat, chickens, birds, furry creatures. Theyre not touching my fish. Arnel, my gardener, plans to trap them using rotting meat as bait. Maybe green iguanas are not bayawak. Maybe theyre green because theyre vegetarian and bayawak are brown because theyre carnivores.
"Theyre not harmful," I tell Ana on the phone. "Some people in the US keep them as pets."
"No, maam," she says. "They have poison in their tails. Where I come from we make sure we dont come in contact with their tail because if it touches you you get the shrinking disease. You lose weight then you get smaller and smaller until you die." Sometimes I think Ana ghostwrote Alice in Wonderland for Lewis Carroll. Maybe I should throw my body in the path of the bayawaks tail so I can lose all the weight Ive put on since I stopped smoking.
"They refuse to move when I shoo them," Ana says. She is convinced they are evil creatures come to get me.
"Its because they think that if they dont move youll think theyre not there. You know, the frog trick? They think they look like stones. You have to attack them and make them uncomfortable," I say, wondering where I got this information. I can tell from Anas desultory, "Really?" that she doesnt believe me.
One week later, I know what kind of animal bore those holes through my screens but I really dont know what to do about them. If you know, please send me e-mail at lilypad@skyinet.net.
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