Me teach geophysics? Give me a break!
Since arriving various faculty members here have been trying to talk me into teaching or co-teaching a class on Plate Tectonics and geodynamics. This idea was in part nutured because Roberta is already doing geochemistry and I, in their eyes, needed to teach something. Ugh. Well several chapters of Turcotte and Schubert have been re-consumed, copious notes taken and we'll see what happens later today.
It was a pretty uneventful start to my pre-dawn day in our apartment - until I went to the bathroom. This room is always a source of interesting African stories. Prior to my visit to the room, I had already read some of my e-mails, including a suite of them from the '75-76 Kenya crew that were focused on retelling stories of the room. Of course, Charlie's e-mail was focused on knowing more about the roach that stared Roberta down - a story from the weekend. To answer Charlie, the beast was indeed smaller than a Buick, although it had comparable speed and maneuverability.
The beasts in question are rather large and very belligerent. [The happy and relieved elephant is just a scale perspective and was taken during one of our previous trips to Tanzania.]
Having been established in our apartment for a couple of weeks now, we felt that we had established ownership of the place. Not so. On the weekend, 3-inch long (not including any sorts of projections from the body), killer roaches descend upon the apartment; note the coincidence in timing, this is the same weekend that North Korea's attacked South Korea, hmmm. All sorts of scientific hypothesis explaining the origins of these beasts began appearing in our conversations, but they did nothing to eliminate the problem! And, I might add, by now Roberta and I had lulled ourselves into thinking that we had reached a fairly equitable agreement with the gecko/skink population in our apartment. BTW, for the Americans reading this, I can assure you that when they scamper from behind a curtain at light speed, you ain't thinking about car insurance, although heart attack insurance might be useful.
Back to the roaches. One of these beasties succeeded in staring down Roberta, who came to me for battle support. I told her that I'm not that crazy. To make myself calmer before the storm, I calculated its mass and mean atomic number, then Roberta insisted that I go in there and do something about it! I isolated myself in the back two rooms, the bedroom and bathroom. I did this in part to restrict the battlefield and also to not let Roberta see me if the battle of shock and awe, did not go as planned. Yes indeed the sucker was there and he was ready to do battle. Finally, he spun and turned. The chase began. Instinctively he knew to keep close to the floor to ceiling curtains, as they are the source of all mysterious crawly things which make the inhabitant jump amazing heights. I was determined to win this battle and was undeterred by the unknown. Ultimately I had him cornered and felt victory in hand. But not quite. The corner was his salvation. He must have noted the geometry of my flip-flops and the corner and knew I would never get him this way. With nothing else in hand literally, I was forced to put one bare foot on the ground (did this guy have reenforcements in the ready, I wondered) and the flip-flop in hand. Pounding away at the corner still didn't do it This was one heck of a clever bug. Finally, either the the sounds were too much or it was laughing too hard to remain in the corner, I got my opportunity and won the battle.
I was however, then faced with the reluctant task of burying the dead at sea. How was I to know that roaches float and are hard to flush down. Let's just say, Roberta was not pleased to have to go to the bathroom with someone/thing watch, albeit from Davy Jones' locker.
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