Things That Go Bite in the Night

I have had a very good past few weeks. Katherine came to visit, the Peace Corps grant for Camp Glow and Grow was approved, and just today a representative from the Japanese embassy came to talk to me about a grant that could potentially provide a much needed renovation to my school, easily one of the most dilapidated in Vava’u. Things are going very well, but one unfortunate incident did occur that I thought would be interesting to recount in my blog.

About two weeks ago, a few days after Katherine left, I was a bit by a venomous centipede called a molokau. I have mentioned the molokau in previous posts, but to really show it’s true nature, I want to quote directly from the Peace Corps Tonga Medical Handbook:

“An adult [centipede] can be 20 cm. or more in length and has a pair of poison glands at the head…The bite is intensely painful. The area around the bite quickly becomes red and very swollen. Additional symptoms may also include headache, dizziness, vomiting, painful swelling of the lymph glands, and local muscle spasms.”

In other words, these centipedes are big, aggressive, and their bite packs a punch. If you don’t believe how ridiculous these centipedes actually are, youtube molokau vs. mouse to see first hand for yourself. Further, the use of the underline for the word painful was the Peace Corps’ decision, not my own.

Before I go any further, let me first set the scene. It was 6:30 in the morning and I was comfortably asleep in my bed on a chilly, for Tonga, Saturday. A restless sleeper, I switched over to my right side moving my left hand underneath the pillow, a sleeping position I have long perfected. As I was slowly moving my hand under the pillow, more asleep than awake in that happy medium where your not aware of anything except for fact you know you will be back asleep, dead to the world, in a matter of seconds.

All of a sudden I feel a prick on my left pinky. I don’t know what it is. I feel a pinch of pain but I just assume I brushed against a nail or piece of sand – it is still unclear to me why I thought this – and am more surprised than hurt. No big deal. 20 seconds later my finger starts to noticeably burn. No worries. 30 seconds later my pinky really hurts. I finally open my eyes and look at my finger. There is a little blood but I still don’t understand what is happening. A minute later, my finger is throbbing, the pain even greater than the time I broke my wrist in middle school and I’m racking my brain trying to figure out what can possibly cause this much pain with such a little cut. My finger is now starting to turn red, and the appearance of swelling that will soon dominate my entire hand is beginning to reveal itself.

I then realize that it’s a molokau. Nothing in Tonga can strike so painfully other than the ugly centipede. The last few days have been raining, and I think to myself that that is exactly when they love to come into a dry house. I have seen a few over the past few months but can they really climb up into my bed while I am asleep? I guess so.

I jump out of bed, swallow two Advil, and open my medical handbook. No useful information except for the underlined word painful and the paragraph I quoted above. It is now 6:45. We have a new Peace Corps doctor in Tonga, who is great but who I didn’t know well at the time, and I feel immensely guilty for calling so early on really the only day off in Tonga as Sunday is consumed by the Church and everything is closed. I can’t do it. I sit on a chair, far away from my bed for now, the entire left side of my hand throbbing and turning red, and wait until 7 to call the doctor. When we speak she is helpful and assures me that there is nothing to worry about, but tells me the only treatment is ice and advil.

Being in Tonga, I of course don’t have ice so I go about making some in my fridge, a process that takes a few hours. I now want proof of the molokau and, of course, vengeance. I search my bed, finding it tucked between my mattress and the bed frame. I one-handedly try to kill it, fail miserably, and allow it to get away without ever exacting the punishment for its crime. The culprit still remains at large, but I have not seen it since that fateful day.

For an hour the pain is “intense.” I like to think I have a relatively high pain threshold – again I have no logical reason for believing this - but I have never experienced any significant injury besides a few broken bones, and this hour was about as painful a time as I can remember. Luckily, the real pain only lasted for an hour, and after that everything became much more manageable. My hand swelled up to about three times its normal size, getting marginally smaller and smaller over the course of the next three days until it returned to the correct size. Getting bitten was by no means a fun experience, but it was certainly a Peace Corps one and I think it made for some interesting blog material. I hope you all can agree, and thus the pain did not occur for naught.

As always thanks for reading and enjoy the remaining photos of my house.

My bedroom, a.k.a. the scene of the crime

My house, which the Tongans sometimes call faka'ofa (sad) because it is rare for a house not to be painted

The neatest my shelf has ever been

My kitchen, grill, dining table, hang out spot, shelf, and work station