Living with Lizards

Although it is very easy to forget that I am on the other side of the planet, there are some situations that slap you in the face with the realization, "You're in Africa." One example, for the last two nights in a row I have encountered lizards...inside my apartment. Americans in other residences have complained about cockroaches in their rooms, but I have only encountered one or two. Then, Wednesday night, I was coming back into my room after watching Scrubs with Mani, about to get ready to go to sleep when I see a lizard on the wall in the corner of my room. I call Mani to come look, and then the lizard runs down the wall into the corner behind my bed. I send a message to Jessi (who has no problem with spiders, so I was hoping the same was true for lizards) to come help us get it out. Although it wasn't moving much with the lights on, I feared that when I turned off the lights to go to sleep it would start running allover the room and allover me. Jessi messaged back the she was in the computer lab waiting for Wakeem and Amir to walk back with her. So Mani and I are standing in the door, hoping that they will show up and come to the rescue. After waiting for 20 minutes it becomes clear it will be a while longer so we decide to take action. First we scope out the lizard's location: right in the corner behind my bed. Then we come up with a plan: one of us will slide the bed out while the other tries to capture the lizard in a tennis ball canister. There is a ton of stuff under my bed that I was worrying it would hide in, so I slowly pull out all the contents while Mani watches to make sure it isn't moving. Finally we are ready to implement our plan--I quickly pull the bed away from the wall and Mani moves the canister toward the lizard which makes a run for it. First it runs up the wall, then towards the window (which I was hoping it would go out of), then down under my desk. Finally, after some more chasing and shrieking it drops into the canister (although we weren't sure at the time because we couldn't see it), and we successfully release it outside. My room was in shambles after the ordeal, but I was able to sleep knowing that my room was lizard-free.

The next night I am taking a shower when I look up and see a lizard (same type as the one that was in my room--maybe even the same darn lizard) looking down at me from the ceiling. Before I know it the lizard loses its footing on the damp wall and drops to the floor of the shower and starts scurrying around, finally making its way to the side. I quickly wash the soap out of my hair and cut my shower short, all the while keeping my eye on the lizard in case it makes any sudden moves. I grab my stuff and shut the door behind me, leaving the lizard in the shower stall. I'm not sure if it made its way back out the window, but I'm going away for the weekend so hopefully it will be gone by Sunday. I have become tolerant of living with more insects than I am used to, but lizards...I'm just not there yet.