Man vs. Beast, Moroccan Edition

I’ve tried to start writing again a number of times and the task always seems daunting. I promise my next post will provide a legit update on work, cultural experiences, and generally insane events that make up my everyday life, but, as usual, I feel more inclined towrite about nature—specifically, the beasts Mother Nature, the world’s cruelest referee, has selected put in the ring with me. I’ll get to them in a minute, but for now I’m going to jump to the present since, as always in Peace Corps Morocco, the present demands our full attention.

In the present, I am going on 36 hours of diarrhea and dehydration headaches caused by heat exhaustion (when I lean over, it feels like an anvil slides from the back of my head to behind my eyes), listening to the daily, afternoon thunderstorm that breaks the 120-degree heat down to 80 and threatens tornados (at least that’s what my Midwestern sense tells me—I don’t know if there has ever been a tornado here but if there were one, I am confident my suicidal house would happily offer itself to the swirling tempest). I’m also periodically scanning my room for scorpions and camel spiders. If you have never heard of a camel spider, I suggest you preserve your innocence and never, ever, check out the Wikipedia page here.

Those of you who deliberately disregarded my warning and visited that Wikipedia page or lost your innocence sometime before most likely presume I am already dead. While I will do everything in my power to defend myself, I must tell you that everything you read is true: camel spiders run faster than you and most frequently towards you, they’re mean-looking sonsofbitches and their guts explode all over the place when you kill them (I don’t know if you read about that last part, but it’s true and it’s wicked gross).

And then there’s the stuff they don’t want you to know. Camel spiders are beautiful Russian spies in disguise. Camel spiders bit the Jonas brothers, displaying a very literal poor taste in music. Camel spiders invented credit default swaps. Camel spiders bit a hole in the Deepwater Horizon.

OK so maybe I made up that last one but it’s one of the more plausible theories out there. I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist, but I do have workable evidence camel spiders may be conspiring with Iago and possibly Glenn Beck to rule the world, starting with my house (thankfully, Glenn Beck has yet to appear within these porous walls but I figure he can’t be too different from a camel spider since they are in the same family (Scarious Pestious Thatus Threatenid Allia Thatis Goodia Indis Worldus)).

Which brings me to the Kill Board. My house may be willing to let creepy-crawling intruders and anti-Semitic mice in, but once they’re here, they enter a world of pain (except for Iago, who has deftly thwarted all attempts to kill him (attempts that have resulted in twelve, yes twelve, of his comrades’ deaths), and continues to find new ways to offend me, like when I woke up the other day next to a mouse turd 3 inches from my face on my pillow… the bastard). With the notable exception of Iago, my right shoe and I have been quite successful against this pest invasion. Note the tallies below, each one representing a near-death experience for me, and an actual death experience for them:

Mark vs.

Camel Spiders: IIIII II

Scorpions: II

Mice: IIIII IIIII II

Iago: (none…. yet)

Note: I refuse to kill giant beetles that number in the hundreds in my house because they appear to be blind and senile, and, while certain anti-Semitic mice may try to convince you otherwise, I am not a cruel man. I’m generally OK with a few flies, until I’m not anymore, at which point I enter a berserker-ninja-jedi rage that ends when my house can be officially designated a no-fly zone. As for the hordes of Jack Bauer cockroaches cohabitating my house, I humbly surrender to them. I once tried to kill a Jack Bauer cockroach by stabbing it at full force with the point of a chef’s knife—the blade refused to pierce the exoskeleton, leading me to believe these are greater beings than I have the power to contend with.

Helpless beetles, evasive flies, and Jack Bauer cockroaches aside, from the stellar numbers posted above, you may think I am winning this war. Alas, it is I who live in fear. Emperor Glenn Beck and his First Lieutenant Iago wage a war of attrition, hurling great numbers of minions in my general direction, caring not for lives lost. In a moral world, one cannot win against such heartless beasts. No, in my house, the rule is kill or be utterly grossed-out and possibly injured for a day or so.

Thus, I will leave you on an appropriately grim note. Legend has it camel spiders earned their name by eating camels. Lots of them. So, if you want to know how I’m doing and I haven’t updated or corresponded in a while, keep hitting refresh on that Wikipedia page and pray it never shows up as “Mark Spiders.”

Best,

Mbarek

But wait! I don’t want to end on that note, especially since so far, I’m actually faring pretty well against the camel spiders. It’s Iago that’s given me over one year of drama. So, for your enjoyment, I would like to submit the first, short entry in my upcoming Indie rock opera “Mice and Men” about the blossoming, unlikely friendship between myself and Iago (incidentally, it is also an allegory for the conflict in Israel-Palestine). The scene:

I have tried to kill Iago on numerous occasions, accidentally resulting in the grotesque deaths of twelve of his compatriots. Following a horrible snowstorm that nearly brought down the roof of my house (seriously, this happened—someday I’ll backtrack and describe it in another post), I have not seen Iago in my house for a few weeks and I begin to miss him. I also begin to wonder if this troubled house is really worth fighting for. At this moment, Iago returns and bravely sings this song. At first he sings by himself, and since I don’t understand Modern Standard Mousabic, I think he’s saying some sort of racial slur and I try to kill him again. But just before I squash him with my boot, I see the fear on his face; I think of his mouse mom and his mouse dad (who, coincidentally, I may have killed earlier), and I realize this fight isn’t worth it, so I sing the same song. Iago doesn’t understand me and thinks I am singing about the many ways I am going to kill him, so he begins to run away to plan his next care-package heist. But just before he leaves, he sees I am not pursuing him, and he understands through my actions that I want peace, so finally we sing together. This final reprise is the excerpt I have included for you today.

Click here to listen: Mice and Men (reprise)