Bringing a little rainy-day box with needle and thread, spare buttons, strong shoelace for repairing a broken napsac strap or what not, a little bit of duct tape and a sandwich-baggie sized zip-loc bag turned out to be pretty handy today.
Friday night I noticed these bites on the back of one leg and the weird thing was that the bites were in perfectly straight lines. And what kind of bug lays down bites in a straight line?. Guess what you get if you google "bites in straight lines"? About 10,000 hits about bed bugs. In hindsight I should have twigged sooner, but the monsoon rains (the few that we've had) brought so many various bugs with them that it was hard to tell what was what. All weekend long my suspicions got stronger and the pain at one particular spot on my behind at my underwear line got more painful. Sunday evening when I got back to the dorm after dinner (and after dark when they like to come out) I found some of the little black bastards on my bed and crawling along the base of the wall adjacent. And here's where the duct tape comes in. I used the duct tape like fly paper to pick up about 20 or 30 bed bugs in total - mostly from the floor, thank god - and lay the tape flat inside the ziploc bag and sealed it tight tight tight. The thing is that collecting so many on a few square inches of duct tape made it look like we actually had that density of bugs in the room or on one bed (yuck!!!), which wasn't the case, thank god. Suffice it to say, it looked gross and packed dramatic punch.
One convenient thing about the ashram is that there is a medical clinic on the grounds. So Monday morning I dropped in to have the doctor look at all those bites - especially the more painful ones (near my bum) but it turns out that doctor's appointments aren't very private here, at least not here at the ashram. I shared the doctor's office with two men, two female high school students, six or seven kindergarden kids and a young woman who was either a nurse or a teacher and whose job was to keep the kids sitting in a neat row on the bed, which they politely did. The doctor looked at some of my bites but didn't ask me to drop my drawers, which I'm thankful about, but didn't exactly boost my confidence in his examination. In fact he didn't ask much, just wrote out a scrip and told me to come back in two days. I showed him the baggie with the bugs but didn't get any reaction out of him. To be honest, I wasn't sure his eyesight was good enough.
Realizing I wasn't going to get much more from him, I headed to ashram Reception toting my baggie and showed them. To be honest, even at this point I wasn't entirely sure what I was dealing with because a lot of the websites I'd been reading said that if I had bed bugs then there would likely be tiny blood spots or stains on the sheets, which I hadn't found. So I approached Reception a little sheepishly, suggested that they might have bed bugs and showed them the evidence. "Yes", they said, "we've been telling them," pointing at Tara-Didi's office, "for a long time and they won't believe us." Sheesh, I thought, thanks a lot. How many of you have known about this, for how long and just let it go? "You will have to show Tara-Didi yourself," they told me.
Background info: Tara-Didi is the Elle-Supremo here. She runs the place and inspires a combination of love, devotion and obedience from the ashramites. This is what I found about her on a website, that actually suggested that she was Sri Aurobindo's daughter, which would explain a lot, but I'm not really sure about. Maybe it was meant figuratively:
Turns out by 5:30 when I got back from work the afternoon reception staff didn't have a clue about us changing rooms and tried to fob us off on the after-dinner crew. Eventually, I got a double room key out of them and got us moved over but, needless to say, there's no sign that any cleaning or airing out of mattresses happened in the dorm. In fact, they even checked a new Italian or German woman in this afternoon. Last I saw after dinner, she was still trying to convince reception staff to move her into a double room. I guess I'll find out at breakfast if she was successful and, if not, speak to the morning staff about it.
So whatever everyone (even me, I think) was saying about the ashram being so clean - take that with a qualification. Just one week to go before getting out of here. So close, but so far. Problem is, it is really difficult to get hot water to properly wash the blighters out of your sheets and if you leave everything out in the sun it might get rained on, so dealing with our stuff might be a bit of a problem.
Anyway, no pictures in this blog post. Tara-Didi kept the baggie of bugs and, in hindsight, I should have photographed it in case the evidence goes missing. Don't tell anyone, but I still have of them crawling around the floor.
On a couple of separate notes:
- I've developed a weird little heat rash on my left cheek under my eyeglasses rim. And it's not even that hot now, but maybe it's the humidity. I'm absolutely sure, it is unrelated to the bed bugs.
- some of the ashram men caught a cobra in the ashram grounds on Saturday afternoon, outside the kitchen. So from now on, I'm going to have to watch my step in the gardens.
Last weekend: Saturday, I was a tourist and poked around Old Delhi and visited the Jama Masjid, a big beautiful (slightly crowded at 1pm) mosque in Old Delhi. Then I bought an accessory for my mobile phone from Nehru Place Market, so all that research I've been doing about grey market mobile phone stores in Delhi came in handy. I tried to dedicate Sunday to writing but found it too hot to concentrate. I guess I was also distracted about my growing beg-bug suspicions.
I expect the rest of this week will be spent report-writing and getting ready to hit the road on Sunday. Work at DEF has been great, but I have to admit I'm looking forward to a change of scene. No offence, anyone who's listening from DEF. Hopefully, I won't be bringing a family of tiny stowaways with me.
Friday night I noticed these bites on the back of one leg and the weird thing was that the bites were in perfectly straight lines. And what kind of bug lays down bites in a straight line?. Guess what you get if you google "bites in straight lines"? About 10,000 hits about bed bugs. In hindsight I should have twigged sooner, but the monsoon rains (the few that we've had) brought so many various bugs with them that it was hard to tell what was what. All weekend long my suspicions got stronger and the pain at one particular spot on my behind at my underwear line got more painful. Sunday evening when I got back to the dorm after dinner (and after dark when they like to come out) I found some of the little black bastards on my bed and crawling along the base of the wall adjacent. And here's where the duct tape comes in. I used the duct tape like fly paper to pick up about 20 or 30 bed bugs in total - mostly from the floor, thank god - and lay the tape flat inside the ziploc bag and sealed it tight tight tight. The thing is that collecting so many on a few square inches of duct tape made it look like we actually had that density of bugs in the room or on one bed (yuck!!!), which wasn't the case, thank god. Suffice it to say, it looked gross and packed dramatic punch.
One convenient thing about the ashram is that there is a medical clinic on the grounds. So Monday morning I dropped in to have the doctor look at all those bites - especially the more painful ones (near my bum) but it turns out that doctor's appointments aren't very private here, at least not here at the ashram. I shared the doctor's office with two men, two female high school students, six or seven kindergarden kids and a young woman who was either a nurse or a teacher and whose job was to keep the kids sitting in a neat row on the bed, which they politely did. The doctor looked at some of my bites but didn't ask me to drop my drawers, which I'm thankful about, but didn't exactly boost my confidence in his examination. In fact he didn't ask much, just wrote out a scrip and told me to come back in two days. I showed him the baggie with the bugs but didn't get any reaction out of him. To be honest, I wasn't sure his eyesight was good enough.
Realizing I wasn't going to get much more from him, I headed to ashram Reception toting my baggie and showed them. To be honest, even at this point I wasn't entirely sure what I was dealing with because a lot of the websites I'd been reading said that if I had bed bugs then there would likely be tiny blood spots or stains on the sheets, which I hadn't found. So I approached Reception a little sheepishly, suggested that they might have bed bugs and showed them the evidence. "Yes", they said, "we've been telling them," pointing at Tara-Didi's office, "for a long time and they won't believe us." Sheesh, I thought, thanks a lot. How many of you have known about this, for how long and just let it go? "You will have to show Tara-Didi yourself," they told me.
Background info: Tara-Didi is the Elle-Supremo here. She runs the place and inspires a combination of love, devotion and obedience from the ashramites. This is what I found about her on a website, that actually suggested that she was Sri Aurobindo's daughter, which would explain a lot, but I'm not really sure about. Maybe it was meant figuratively:
- "Thus, when three years after the Mother left her body, Tara came to Delhi in 1976 to be by her father’s side to help him in developing the Delhi Branch of the Ashram, Chacha ji got a person who was not only physically and mentally well-equipped, but who also had the right level of consciousness for the job. She soon became popular in the Delhi Ashram as Tara Didi. Under the guidance of Chacha ji, and with the help of her brother, Anil ji, (Tara-Didi) became a powerful instrument of the Mother’s Force for developing the Ashram. Under Tara Didi’s guidance and with her initiative started the Vocational Training and Teacher Training Courses at Delhi, and the Study Camps, Youth Camps and National Integration Camps at Van Niwas, Nainital. Tara Didi’s planning and organization has led to the construction of several new buildings on the campus, and with that the expansion of the activities of the Ashram."
Turns out by 5:30 when I got back from work the afternoon reception staff didn't have a clue about us changing rooms and tried to fob us off on the after-dinner crew. Eventually, I got a double room key out of them and got us moved over but, needless to say, there's no sign that any cleaning or airing out of mattresses happened in the dorm. In fact, they even checked a new Italian or German woman in this afternoon. Last I saw after dinner, she was still trying to convince reception staff to move her into a double room. I guess I'll find out at breakfast if she was successful and, if not, speak to the morning staff about it.
So whatever everyone (even me, I think) was saying about the ashram being so clean - take that with a qualification. Just one week to go before getting out of here. So close, but so far. Problem is, it is really difficult to get hot water to properly wash the blighters out of your sheets and if you leave everything out in the sun it might get rained on, so dealing with our stuff might be a bit of a problem.
Anyway, no pictures in this blog post. Tara-Didi kept the baggie of bugs and, in hindsight, I should have photographed it in case the evidence goes missing. Don't tell anyone, but I still have of them crawling around the floor.
On a couple of separate notes:
- I've developed a weird little heat rash on my left cheek under my eyeglasses rim. And it's not even that hot now, but maybe it's the humidity. I'm absolutely sure, it is unrelated to the bed bugs.
- some of the ashram men caught a cobra in the ashram grounds on Saturday afternoon, outside the kitchen. So from now on, I'm going to have to watch my step in the gardens.
Last weekend: Saturday, I was a tourist and poked around Old Delhi and visited the Jama Masjid, a big beautiful (slightly crowded at 1pm) mosque in Old Delhi. Then I bought an accessory for my mobile phone from Nehru Place Market, so all that research I've been doing about grey market mobile phone stores in Delhi came in handy. I tried to dedicate Sunday to writing but found it too hot to concentrate. I guess I was also distracted about my growing beg-bug suspicions.
I expect the rest of this week will be spent report-writing and getting ready to hit the road on Sunday. Work at DEF has been great, but I have to admit I'm looking forward to a change of scene. No offence, anyone who's listening from DEF. Hopefully, I won't be bringing a family of tiny stowaways with me.
3 comments:
Update: the last two people in the dorm did manage to get moved to another room after dinner, after much dropping of Tara-Didi's name and this morning I saw the mattresses being dragged out of the dorm, so it's good to see some action.
Your story doesn't seem to surprise me, made me go yuck but not surprised. I recall there was a real epidemic of bb thoughout hotels in TO not so long ago. You don't need the hot weather, so much but the volumn of people. Im thinking. Did you get any sleep the nights following..?
I'm in a different double room now and seem to have the bed all to myself. :)
Yeah, they call bed bugs the great equaliser: they can show up in the crappiest hostel or the fanciest hotel in Paris.
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