Baby, it's humid outside!

Yikes - just checked the weather in Trinidad and it is 73 degrees, 94% humidity. Oh. My. God. That is unreal....the Husbandly One had reminded me it was going to be like the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, which is the only place I have ever experienced anything like that.

At Bahia Pariaso (at right) we thought we'd landed in heaven. It was adorable - and an hour or so by boat to get to - very remote. Thatched roofs, as you can see, etc. We were staying in housing a wee bit less fancy - permanent installation tents - roomy as tents go, with a sort of small two-room layout - all screened to keep the bugs out, with a bedroom behind a small sitting area. Two cots, and enough room to stand up, but not if you were much taller than either of us. Reading lamps during the hours the generator was on - lights out about ten or eleven p.m. Quite cute, and very sensible, we thought. We prefer a bit of adventure on our travels.

Of which we were not disappointed. The first night, upon getting up in the middle of the night to go to the central bathrooms, I strapped on a headlamp and set out. Then 'things' began skittering all around me. We are talking large-ish things, with darting movements. Turns out it was this particular kind of land crab, which we had found gaily colored and quite cute during the day on the beach. We had even taken a picture of one:


Gorgeous little bugger, eh? It actually resembles a weird plastic toy one I'd gotten years ago and had deemed most unrealistic. Not so. At any rate, these little suckers were everywhere. During the day, some skittered about, but at night, in a nearly full moon, they were everywhere. They ranged in size from an inch or so across, to about six inches. Which is a respectable size for something that is scurrying around your feet in the dark.

But it was fine once you got used to it. They moved like cockroaches do when you turn a light on in the middle of the night, and you had to get used to them scuttling about whenever you moved around at night. I would just aim high with the lamp and move fairly slowly and let them get out of my way. Nature is nature, and it was fine. Until. Until. Until...

One night, one of the absolute hottest and most humid, we were both lying on our little cots, sweating and trying to not complain about the intense humidity, which was truly astonishing. It was after lights out, and we had both shed what minimal coverings we usually wore to bed. The set-up of the tent buildings was the aforementioned sitting area - about six or seven feet square, and then a separate tent entry with zippers into the bedroom, which was maybe seven feet by ten feet. There were two twin cots on either side, with a little end table at one end and two reading lamps on that. Enough room to maneuver around in, but hardly palatial.

We were both, as I've said, lying in our respective beds, trying to discern some sort of breeze coming through the little screened windows when we heard an odd scuttling sound that seemed to be coming from inside. The Husbandly One is even more sound-sensitive than I, and couldn't rest until he found out what it was. Plus, what else were we going to do? It was too hot to sleep, really. So he scrambled around and found a headlamp. He aimed it towards the sound - nothing. And then he moved his head, and the light beam caught one of these crabs. Which looked a lot larger when it was in our tent, I must say.

And another. And another. There were six or seven of them in there with us. So much for heaven - now we are both shrieking and trying to chase these things out. Except that like all tents, there's about a four inch 'sill' between rooms, as the 'sitting area' has been jury-rigged onto a large tent. So the crabs can't get out, and we very much wanted them out. Not going to get much sleep that way. Perhaps you could, but there was NO way we could fall asleep with crabs scratching around our very small sleeping area.

So now we are both buck-naked, wearing headlamps, trying to find something to capture them in and toss them outside. Have you ever tried to catch a land crab? Trust me - they don't want to be caught. We quickly realized there was no way to be successful at our goal, and even if we had managed to beat the odds and catch one, there was no way we were going to catch six or seven.

The other problem is that it is so hot and humid, and we're moving around more and faster than you would think possible in such a small space, so we were both sweating so much that the headlamps were slipping off our heads, and the crabs are taking refuge under our beds. And the folds of the tent. And our towels and clothing that have fallen on the ground. (Again, when you are in a very small space with a number of large crabs, you move. Fast. And they move faster. And things fall off beds.)

The Husbandly One was the first to realize there was only one answer: we could not catch the crabs and remove them. The crabs had to die. I was not up for the task, so I had the job of holding the light and trying to isolate one crab at a time, whereupon he would smash the living bejeezus out of it and toss the carcass outside. So now we are both jumping around the tent, pulling the beds up and out, slamming into the sides of the tent which are so wet from the increased humidity from our activity, which was showering down more moisture, and the crabs are trying their damnedest to escape, and we are trying to isolate, corner and kill them.

In the midst of all this, we couldn't help laughing hysterically, as really - it was too absurd. After what seemed like hours, we had dispatched as many as we could find, reassembled the beds, and settled back down, waiting to hear for any more of the distinct clicking sound they made. And after an hour or so free of it, we both fell exhaustedly asleep. Never mind the adrenalin. Never mind the humidity. And never mind that the entire tent smelled....well.....just about how you would expect a Crab Killing Field in sweltering heat to smell.

(To this day, if one of us wants to freak the other out, we make that little clicking noise and run our fingers along the others' arm.)

As a final note, when chatting with other guests the next day, one couple who had a baby was also looking rather tired and bruised under the eyes. I asked if the baby had kept them up, and they said, "No, you won't believe what happened to us! There were these crabs...." They had tried to hold out until the crabs started climbing up around the baby's bed, and then they went nuclear as well - killing all they could see.

I'm surprised we didn't hear each other.... after they had slaughtered their share of the little beasts, they pounded on the managers' door and demanded crab-free shelter. There were no more rooms available in the concrete building (painted orange above) but they were so distraught that the managers gave them their own room until another room opened.

Other than that it was just lovely! I'm assuming that the hotel we're staying at in Port of Spain will not feature such exotic fauna...

Teaching in the Caribbean

Five days to take-off. I'm going over to lead on-site seminars in the Caribbean: Supervision & Management, Total Quality Management, Leadership, and Conflict Resolution. How did I get so lucky? Here's my story:

I am an adjunct professor in evening certificate programs. A few quarters ago, the school where I teach had a delegation of students from Trinidad & Tobago come over for one of those certificate programs. The students stayed all quarter, and had a full complement of program classes during the day. Five of them took my Supervision & Management class in the evening, on their own time. They were quite delightful and lent the class a unique perspective on supervision and management issues in another country. Of course those pesky human beings are the same everywhere, but there are cultural norms that differ as well. It was all great fun, and the students did very well in my class.

(It was, however, a shock when in total honesty one of them admitted at the end of the quarter that she had only taken it to fill time in the evenings so she wouldn't get bored. For some reason, I'd never thought of that. We instructors tend to impute loftier goals to students than are real, sometimes. I've grown accustomed to the 'because my boss said I had to take it' reason for attendance but 'better than being bored' cut me right down to size! At least she said it hadn't been a waste of time.) But I digress...

As this was happening in real time, my school was continuing to work on an ongoing relationship with this company in Trinidad. The following quarter (or so) the school sent over two instructors to teach instead of bringing the whole group over here. Which makes sense - it's cheaper to fly and keep two over there for an accelerated quarter than to fly and keep 20 people here. Plus, it was rather hard on anyone with a family to be away from them for an entire 3 months. (And if it wasn't - they weren't telling....grin.)

Needless to say, everyone on campus was green with envy about the two who got to go to Trinidad. Cheerful begging to travel along in luggage, etc., was the vogue for weeks. Since I love to snorkel, I was especially green, but as an evening, part-time adjunct, I knew I would never be on that magic list - being at the bottom of the academic food chain, as it were.

Proving once again that anyone, even I, can be wrong, I was asked to be one of the instructors this time. So I've got five days left to put together lesson plans to teach 11 credits in 4 1/2 hours a day for five weeks. Maybe. We understand that Friday afternoons are traditionally not a time of much work in Trinidad, and we really have no idea what to expect.

Adding to the fun, I had never yet found a really good text for TQM and had to order blindly off of a website, so I've never seen my textbook. Fun! AND - usually with textbooks, there is a teacher's edition (that would be the one with answers) and a variety of supplementary materials - lecture outlines, test questions, that sort of thing. To my surprise and chagrin, it turns out the textbook I finally ordered by one of the most sophisticated search mechanisms possible (What do you have enough of in stock) after having the first six or seven be out of print, not enough available, etc., etc., has no such materials whatsoever. So that should be fun!

Now all I have to do is figure out how to take all of my teaching materials along with me. I'm a paper kind of gal - lots of my materials are on my laptop but just as many aren't - one builds up a formidable library of paper materials over the years. And when one is flying blind with textbooks and teaching venue and....basically everything, one wishes to have those materials on hand. So the luggage is getting a bit out of hand.

Clothing - not bad. Light stuff - summery, etc. Though those who have gone before say that it is customary to not wear sleeveless shirts there. So there have to be some jacket-type items along. Though one suspects that Trinidad will just have to get used to seeing Ramona's sausage arms for this time period - it's gonna be hot, hot, hot by my standards. Air-conditioned inside, of course, but hot outside. So more clothes necessary to accommodate hot outside, cold inside.

Apparently they also don't wear thong-style sandals. However, that's all I have, so they are also going to have to get used to Ramona's sausage toes. But I digress...

Snorkel gear doesn't take up too much room. Taking a Brita and filter as I am manic about icky-tasting water. Bulky, but light. Then there's reading material - at times like this I wish I wasn't such a fast reader. But it's mostly teaching materials. Sigh. Plus we have to take all textbooks with us. I will meet up with Sharon, my co-teacher on this adventure, at the airport at the crack of dawn on Sunday, and she and her hubby will bring the crates of books. This should get interesting. We'll hope the luggage over-charges are less than the limit on my credit card!

Rabbitron Goes Blogging

Six days left before I fly away on the big plane in the sky. Sure wish I liked flying...but that has never been the same since one particularly memorable through-stop in San Francisco. For those who have never had the pleasure, it basically looks like you're going to land in the ocean - the airport landing strip is on a tiny ribbon of land surrounded by the Great Blue Beyond. Now, I love the ocean - I really do. But I have no interest in plummeting into it at however many gazillion miles per hour a passenger jet is coming in. But I digress. (You'll want to be getting used to that...)

So we are flying into SF on an evening so stormy that they have been closing the airport on and off all day. (This, naturally, is not a good sign and had not exactly increased the confidence level of the passengers.) Our flight had been delayed numerous times, and I for one was fine with that. Delayed - fine. Dead - not so. Before landing - we had to circle the airport for quite some time in the storm - as the horrific weather and aforementioned closures had backed things up a wee bit. Even at that altitude, it was a bumpy flight as they say. And boy were they saying it!

One of the things I found most notable was the complete absence of soothing messages from the cockpit. You know: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be experiencing some mild turbulence. Please fasten your seatbelts, etc." Nope. Nary a word. This circling is going on for quite some time, so they had plenty of time to say hello, mention the weather would be getting even worse than we already knew about, send us a line - something. Anything! Nothing. Which from my own experience with pilots of smaller craft led me to believe they didn't have time for any of that nonsense. They were too busy trying to keep us alive. Which was only fair, and even though I missed the soothing nonsense, I was more than willing to let them focus on keeping that giant chunk of metal aloft in gale-force winds.

After what seemed hours but was about twenty minutes or so, we finally begin our descent. Into hell.

The plane began lurching about as though it was attached to a demonic child's marionette strings. We are talking tossed about in the storm. We are talking floating magazines. We are talking airsick bags. Down we dropped - and then up-surged. That's not a word, but that's what we did. It was the longest descent of my life, and for the entire time, we jerked about like a puppet in a hurricane. I was quite certain we were going to die. It was very clear.

My best friend was with me, and we (along with everyone else) had Assumed The Position, heads between our knees, sobbing, holding hands, and praying. Now, you may not know me, but I'm not known for traditional prayer. But I was praying to any and all gods I could think of. I'm also not much of a crier - I tend to cry once a year or so just to keep in practice. (Or I did before I met my husband, who is truly gifted at helping me access the crying program. But I digress again. I told you...) But on this evening, I was sobbing. In public. Gulping, Death-Is-Comin'-On-In silent sobbing.

When we got to the part where the plane levels out and is theoretically parallel to the ground just above the tarmac, we could see right out of the window into the ocean. Ocean with whipped crazy waves that looked as though they were coming up onto the strip. Giant greedy waves. Foaming fountains of stuff you can't breathe when your plane crashes into it - that sort of ocean. We careened down the strip, tossed from side to side and lurching up and down, before finally getting one wheel on the ground, and then.....BAM! the other wheels finally hit the tarmac and the reverse thrusters or whatever the heck they use started in.

As we shuddered along, still swerving from the wind, to the end of the run way and then finally to a halt there was complete and total silence. (Well, silence if you don't count the weeping, praying, sobbing and throwing up. Which by then was just normal background noise...) Then, very slowly, one person began to clap, and then another and another until we were all applauding the pilots, the crew, ourselves, and the sheer relief of being alive. People who didn't even know each other were clapping each other on the shoulders, hugging, and laughing giddily together in the joy of being gloriously, fabulously alive and not in the ocean.

Then after a short stop, we (those of us lucky enough to be flying on) had to take back off in that very same storm. But that's another story, and this will hopefully have been enough to illustrate why I no longer enjoy flight.