Well, I almost did not get to have a day off this week, but I had to put my foot down with Bradley Bey and make him give me one. So I spent last night in Diyarbakir. It was not too much fun however since I was midly sick, I ended up sleeping all day. I feel fine today.
So not too much has happened this week, but my Tuesday incident with the cockroaches was enough for me. Anyone who knows me well knows my absolute fear of cockroaches. When we originally came to Bismil, Lynn had told me to watch out for rats and cockroaches in the depo. Not what I had wanted to hear. No rats soo far, but plenty of cockroaches. To begin with I would come across the occasional one when I was back in the corner crates. I could handle those, you scream, back away, and let them run. It was a good policy. However, when I got around to fixing out the crates towards the front of the depo, where everone organizes their artifacts when they come in from the field---we found an entire nest of cockroaches. At first I had one of the little boys from next door helping me. You had to pull out every artifact and put them into a "clean" crate. By about the tenth cockroach that we had to kill he could not take it anymore and left. It is important to note that this is also the first time that I have ever killed a cockroach. I still had five stackes of crates to go. Then this other girl came and helped me. She was very proud of her not being afraid of them, in fact she felt it necessary to pick one up and show me how unafraid that she was. But then the Haji--our landlord--saw her in there with me and shooed her away. 3 stacks left to go. Now that I was by myself, I would take the crattes outside near the dumpster to "clean" them. The whole neighborhood thought that it was really funny to watch me stamp on them. By the time there was only two stacks left, there were so many cockroaches in the crates that I knew I needed help. The entire time durring this, I am crying and completelly grossed out and on the verge of freaking out. Drew came down to help me--he was my hero for that day--but when we got too the last crate I still do not think that either of us could have been prepared. We had kicked it a couple of times, and managed to kill 10-15 escapees---I was not prepared for the thirty or so cockroackes to come scrambling out from under that crate. If fact I screamed soo loud that four guys off the street rushed in to see if I was ok. When they saw the problem they all started to help us stamp them out. Afterwards the place looked awful---squeeshy bug býts everywhere. I had to wait 2 hours before I could even venture down to the depo again. When I cleaned up the mess--when the broom would run over some of the roaches they would start to twich again. So I would have to stamp them again. Most of the bits I had to scrap up. I did not want to have any mental breakdowns this year, but I totally lost it. After I calmed down, I could not sleep that night because each time I closed my eyes I would see the cockroaches. I stayed up until I fell asleep from exhaustion. Now I have no problem with killing the roaches. I still jump a little. We have started a daily kill count--the numbers are dwindling. 6 the day after, then four, then one. I think that the word has gotten out to the whole cockroach community to stay out of my way. Marco keeps calling me La Cocoracha.