Let me tell you about this weekend when Krysta came to visit.
Saturday morning, we decided to go on a hike. I love hiking up in the hills behind my house, so when I have company, I love taking people up the challenging slopes to a different world. We knew it was going to be a hot day, so we wore baseball caps and brought water and energy bars. On the way up, we saw some amazing views and talked about tetanus shots, allergies, and how we would notify our families of each other's death, in case that happens while we are here. (remember, if we die here its probably while we were doing something super fun).
Anyway, I talked krysta into eating a mystery berry which she had never seen before. I tried one once before, and I didn't die. Reluctantly, she put it in her mouth. (and see Krysta, you didn't die!) we walked and walked, and at one point, with sweat dripping down our faces, we decided to stop for a snack and something to drink. I had just gotten comfortable and slipped that first piece of banana nut Odwalla bar into my mouth, when Krysta jumped, yelling "something's biting me!" I, not wanting to be disturbed, told her to calm down. Then we saw a bee buzzing around her head. I slowly got up and tried to kill it, but as I did so, I got stung. Krysta was worrying by now, but I told her again that she would have to calm down because I just got stung. But then, she got stung again!
Right then, I looked up and saw one of those beautiful olive green 1970s land rovers that are so common in this country. Two men, in bright orange bee keeper suits were motioning for us to get out of the road. I didnt get it. Then I realized. F. We quickly hopped the fence and started walking. Krysta was doing this gnarly sort of reggae dance behind me, untangling her hair and trying to shake bees off her. I was just marching, stiff as a soldier, out into the great wide open. I didn't think much of it until I turned around to hear Krysta screaming and to see an old man come running toward us while also cussing and waving a machete around his head. He also had a dog. I was a little worried about the dog. Ha! Until I asked the man if the bees were stinging him. Of course! He yelled and he disappeared into the woods.
Then I was stuck. I wanted to follow this man because he probably had some local wisdom, but I wanted to help Krysta because she was freaking out. And after all, I'm hosting her here in these woods, and this is quickly turning into a nightmare. Seriously, Hitchcock had his birds, the Bible had its locusts, but these bees were something serious.
While dancing, I noticed she had dropped her hat, camera, backpack, and waterbottle, in short everything. So I busied myself with collecting all of that in between swatting bees from my own face and doing my best to pick them out of her hair. I remember she was doing this amazing running man while messing up her hair. If I hadnt been so panicked, I would have started singing "she's a maniac on the dance floor" right there. In stead, I just endlessly apologized to Krysta as we kept getting repeatedly stung by a swarm of bees.
How do you stop them? It was the worst moment of my peace corps experience so far. In the end, I got stung once on each arm, 3 times on the face, (Bee stings! On the face!) and on the back of my ear. Krysta got stung 4 or 5 times on the back of her head, a couple times on her hands, and a few times on her leg. She totally had it worse than I did.
The best part was when we made it back to the road, the bees had stopped following us, and we just stood there defeated. We didnt know where to go, or what had just happened, so we just stood there, until a man on a horse came walking by. With a sense of post-apocolyptic community, I asked him if he was getting stung also. Stone faced, he said no, then immediately began waving his hands violently around his face as he picked up the pace. I think we each received our final stings in the moments after that encounter. Special thanks to that guy.
It was crazy. Frigging bees. Krysta reflected later, hopefully this doesnt change our relationships with honey.
That afternoon, exhausted from the walking and the emotional trauma, we took naps. Later that night, after dinner, we brought wine and sweatshirts up to the water tank above my house. It was exceptionally clear, and as I live in the country, we could see thousands of stars. Plus, there was one little cloud that provided an ongoing lightning show. Almost rythmically, every minute it exploded with electricity. It was beautiful.
There, we talked about how the sacrifice were making by being away from our families and permanent community -you may not believe this- isnt that big of a sacrifice. I don't know if I can explain. First, our families are always changing, growing, moving, and almost none of our friends live in the same city anymore, so its not like there's a community were really missing out on. Then we reasoned 80 years of feeling like an outsider isnt that long of a time, when we're ridiculously blessed and we know this is what we should be doing. And then we moved on to talking about Heaven. To quote Bill Woods, my jr high Bible teacher, I hope when we're in Heaven I can sit down and talk with you for 1,000 years. We went from asking Is 80 years a long time? To Will 80,000 years be a long time in Heaven? 80,000 years!
After that conversation, we came inside to discover a rat had died somewhere close enough to my room to make it stink. It is a bad smell, but where can you go? So disgusting. Ive been using Lysol like theres no tomorrow.
Then Sunday, we decided to make the pumpkin pancakes that Jen brought from America. My host dad started chanting We want pancakes! And my host brother claimed 20 as his own. It was so so so good. We ate until we were uncomfortable.
But to burn it off, I went to a soccer game. Krysta came to watch me play. Everyone was immediately interested in her, of course. In the first half, there was a little fight and the coaches both came onto the field. I feel like I kind of took some control of the situation by breaking up heated conversations and yelling at everyone until they relaxed and we got the game back under way. Minutes later, at halftime, one of the wives jokingly called me Seargent Josh. It might just be my haircut.
However proud of my peacemaking abilities as I might be, in the second
half the tide sorta changed. I was feeling pretty comfortable just joking around and playing calmly. Our team was winning like 6-2, and I was running all over the field, but then, I went for a loose ball with another guy. We both barrelled down on it, and he just touched it before I got there. I had no other option than to basically stampede him, which is what happened. I was pretty sure it hurt, but almost positive that he had laughed at something while he was on the ground. So, although the foul was obvious, I turned and hollered jokingly, that he was acting. Totally A Joke. No one saw the humor. Their coach came on the field again, the other team reminded me that Im a hypocritic jerk and I deserved a red card for it, and worse of all, the game ended right there. The other team just decided they didnt want to play any more. Not against brutes like me, you know. When the guy finally got up, he wouldnt accept my apology. And he told me, people dont do that. It was like I betrayed him personally or
something. We all just walked off the field confused. We practically asked ourselves in unison What just happened? with me leading the chorus. It was so strange.
Then Krysta and I came home, had a late lunch and saw that some of our bee stings had swollen up, then she took a bus home. It was a crazy weekend, but it was so much fun.
2 comments:
Keep eating honey my friend. Every time you do remember that you are swallowing the precious honey-bee treasure they sacrificed their lives to make. Eat it and always think, "In your FACE bees!"
Post a Comment