Watch where you’re walking!

It always makes sense to watch where you’re walking. I’m sure nearly everyone has made the mistake of not looking and consequently walking into a tree or a pole or stepping on a dog poo. Well in the village we have another hazard that you need to keep your eyes open for – large crab holes!

They are big enough for your foot to go into up to a point, and there are times when I have found myself with my foot down a crab hole. They are along our path to the toilet, and it’s even harder to spot them at night. Here’s the same crab hole as the one in the photo above, with my foot next to it to show you the size.

Being bitten by a crab is not the hazard – I think they run away – the danger is more that if you’re not lucky, you could end up spraining an ankle or just come crashing to the ground if you’re not expecting it.

There are a lot of small crab holes that aren’t a problem either, but some crabs build big homes which also produces a small mountain of sand next to the hole as you can see in this photo.

Toilet guests

Have you ever gone to the toilet and there’s a fly in the room? I’m sure you know what that’s like. Where might that fly land? Fortunately, we don’t seem to have flies in our village toilet very often, but we have some other toilet guests whom I will now introduce to you.

Spiders: These are the guests I don’t mind so much, they just stay in their little corner and keep to themselves. They don’t run and attack me.

Toads: They often guard the entrance to the toilet and might randomly jump and hit my leg as I walk past, which freaks me out and I squeal!

Crabs: Some crabs dig their holes inside our toilet house. Usually they run away deep down inside their hole when I come near, but there have been a couple of times where I’ve seen a crab on the ground and worried that it might attack my leg.

Cockroaches: Never a pretty sight, especially when they’re scuttling around near the toilet seat! Thankfully, they are afraid of people and never accidentally touch you!

A mother hen: Stupid hen! I was not at all impressed when she decided that our toilet house was a good place for her and her chick to rest for the night. Especially when my foot got a little too close to the hen and she attacked my foot! She got a good telling off in Teop for that.

Most of these toilet guests are only around in the evening (except for the spiders), so most of the time, there isn’t really a problem. I’ve probably made it sound worse than it is! Going to the toilet where we live is not an unpleasant experience. There are much worse village toilets in other parts of PNG!

Things that move

At both Alotau and Hagita, I have encountered various things that move. Creepy crawlies isn't quite the right term and I can't think of a general term that covers rats, frogs, ants and crabs.

We saw a rat in the toilet block on our first night at Hagita and screamed because of the sudden movement of it running fast. We haven't seen a rat there since though. Maybe we scared it away too with our scream! Nearly every night, there are frogs there too, but fortunately they have kept out of the toilet stalls and not scared us too much.

We don't have frogs or rats at the Alotau Centre, but I have seen little crabs, very small ones, but I don't like them running around inside. They look a bit like spiders.

I am also fighting an ant war at both places!! There were ants on my toothbrush, inside my toothbrush holder, so now I am keeping it in a zip-lock bag. I had ants among the cereal and milk powder that I left at the Alotau Centre for eating when I am there on the weekends. Ants are always hard to keep on top of everywhere. When I'm in Ukarumpa, I have the occasional ant crawling in and out of my computer, which is a bit of a worry!