unedited

On Mosquitos

I had been here for two days and already I had counted the days I had been here.

Yes I know it’s only been two days and gully dwarves could count up to that number as well but I’m telling you, losing sleep for two nights running after a period of over-working is not funny.

Especially when the cause was mainly heat and mosquitoes. Heat I can hardly take already; heat coupled with mosquitoes warrants a surefire way to wake me and have me stay that way. Not that I’m ungrateful for the invitation to be about when the wedding takes place – I am, very much so in fact.

But being invited to witness the ceremonies during the day does not take away any of the itches that were bestowed upon me by these persistent six-legged little things during the night. Wearing painstakingly-crafted lacy garments helped, though, for I seemed to be wearing a fine, pretty net that allowed air to circulate and no mosquitoes. I was thankfully bite-free for the entire day. The downside was the weather was still as warm and humid as ever.

I had thought of a – principle, if you will – this morning when I was still bleary-eyed. If the reason why mosquitoes are this hungrily persistent is due to the ‘need’ for variety – does that mean hedonism is a bad bad thing indeed?

What I mean by variety is that these insects can survive on nectar, plant fluids and dew, not just human blood (or any blood, for that matter). And these insects chose human over plant, and me over the rest of the people. I have often wondered how they differentiated between the tastes, if there were tastes to us all. Surprisingly and for fear of sounding ever-so-slightly racist, my Malay roommates were left alone, so much so that when I had awoken from the pain (yes, literal pain) from the bites in the middle of the night to harass a slumbering roommate – her response was an exasperating ‘Really? There were mosquitoes?’

So… does that mean in a country and area that primarily houses Malays – I as a Chinese gets special treatment? Hmm. Maybe it was the difference in scent. But that cannot be, for I made sure I used whatever soap there was in the common bathroom. Maybe I give our more heat than the rest due to my higher metabolic rate and that therefore marks me as a beacon for those heat-sensing irritations? Or do people of different racial descent taste different to them? This is more possible than the ‘new-blood’ argument, considering I was bunking with three other people who were also visitors.

The reason why I ponder this much about mosquitoes is because goodness knows I react badly to mosquito bites, one bite can easily swell up to one and a half of the diameter of a fifty-cent coin. And God forbid that the bite should be on my face. It will look like a pimple and I cannot touch it. No amount of Oxy will help, the swelling will just have to go down by itself, which will take quite a few days indeed.
But through these two days, I had mastered mind over matter again. Funny, it happens each time I encounter mosquito problems as such which incidentally coincides with my trips to Indonesia.

Once the pain was over it was pretty much fine. It was the fifteen seconds after the bite that is quite unbearable. The itch that you can locate but cannot see; the itch you can locate and can see, then the stage wherein the itch heightens and the part that has been bitten starts swelling stupendously in irregular shapes and freak the hell out of you on top of being both itchy and painful at the same time.

If this is not poison I don’t know what is.


But then, mind over matter works. That or some soap and cold, cold water.

Hmm. Looks like I’ve said quite a bit about something as small as mosquitoes. I suppose I should get some sleep now and probably charge my laptop. The kids here seem to like me a lot, for some reason.

Do I smell nice to them too, that they like me this much?