A fine morning. Fine Sunday morning. I am minding my business, reflectively as I am wont to do on Sundays. I save Sunday mornings for organizing, and structure — and prayer. Then there is the watering of my plants — a hobby I recently rediscovered. While increasing my list of pleasant activities, my confession is that I have gone all into it — and on Sunday morning; I check on which plant is blossoming, and which flower is blooming or which one needs a little help.
A couple of Sundays back, I discovered black droppings on the potting bench. They looked like crisp dried black wax. It later registered when I saw a tiny caterpillar on my plant. I looked right, left and right again while wishing it away. The stubborn thing was coiling its agile body which made me quickly retreat. Is it one of those that coil back before it thunders onto you and clings there? I should have figured that when you see a tiny one, the parent must be lurking by. I reached out into my toolbox for a pair of scissors and pruned the leaf that the offender had clung onto. I then threw the baby away — almost together with my hand. After the incident, I thought it was maybe a bad idea to introduce this plant into the succulent collection — but then isn’t dudu spray supposed to fix this. I had not thought about this beforehand; that when you green, you might need to invest in care for the green space. Well, then you might doubt my farm girl claim. As well as you might doubt my morbid fear of caterpillars, hairy or otherwise. And snakes — the reason I don’t watch Nat geo anymore because my nightmares reached unsustainable levels. And snails –my God! Any lovers of this sticky amphibian might start an appeal to have me fined for the torture I have caused them because the sight of them has had me use my salt shaker in an aggressive manner. Then moments after, I close my eyes as they melt away. And slugs — the black version of snails, making visits to marshy grounds horrendous for me. And chameleons –ha!
This morning. I am about to water the plants when I see a stretched-out caterpillar! This time I take a second but brief look because, Lord above no! My options are limited because my offending way of cutting the leaf won’t work. I swear that as I type on my computer, the thought of tossing the baby with the bath water is alive and well. Except that the bath water is a huge planter that besides the mess of a flying pot with soil crashing on the ground beneath, it might also cause irreparable damage. I cannot afford a suit — and I care deeply about the environment. You might debate my inability to co-exist with creepy crawlies as intolerance to the natural ecosystem as we know it. Not at all.
So, I sit. I ponder. I think of transferring my nightmare to someone else who does not share this inability to process the sight of creepy crawlies. I share this piece of daunting information while pacing up in the house expressing the shock. I even call a family member — who is asleep and is well not amused, because — ah, an adult female who in her many years of existence has not been able to process her fear of creepy crawlies. What a burden to bear!
I remember reading an article sometimes back about a woman who could not leave her house because of caterpillars and how after seeing one at dinner she could not eat lettuce for a whole year. I could relate to that phobia. And I remember reading the article squinting my eyes at the pictured caterpillars — and really sympathizing with her. I thought once I process my own phobia — I would write about this. This is that day, except that I have not processed the phobia. Instead, the phobia has jostled me into creative action — the written experience.
How did we get here? You might ask. I have heard that question numerous times. The contradiction is that I love nature and I will often be found in a farm, or a forest, or a park. Minding my own business until I see the creepy crawlies, or a reptile and my expedition is over. I recently watched a documentary on artisanal mining — and saw this guy casually remark, “shoot, there is a huge snake — a cobra ready to strike”. And they looked at each other, before the reptile quickly slithered away into nearby thicket, perhaps after sensing no threat. I remember thinking, how can you do that. Indeed, on behalf of that guy, I had already mentally jumped into the mine for his safety. Could never be me! I think a snake biologist or similar could never be a career option for me. Imagine I, as a plant pathologist, say specializing in sweet potato vine, and digging my fingers into an innocent furrow with succulent sweet potato vines only to unearth fat healthy worms! I would collapse into the raw open ground.
Back to the origin. I was about 7 years of age. Or younger. I had spent my day collecting coffee beans with my sister — that is what memory says. Or I was doing it alone. I could never tell why we had to collect coffee beans or why filthy looking black beans would make coffee. Neither would the brain of a child process who the end consumer was. But I did it. Then coffee was a cash crop– and the family farm had a decent crop. So, I spent time there, picking red berries only — and eating some; never mind the worms therein. My competition was bats and birds. Strange habits. So, I had occasional run-ins with the caterpillar, and chameleons. My bane was mostly chameleons — because of their famed ability to stick their stubborn self onto your kinky hair, and then methodically work their horn into your scalp exposing your brain to death. See!
This is until an evening, when I followed my mother around. Stubbornly holding her cloak because of a rash that me release a torrent of tears, and mucus and saliva. I could not be comforted because although I had stripped naked, my neck hurt like hell. And despite assurance from my mother that nothing was on my skin, I kept seeing the caterpillar from the corner of my eyes. It was a collar bone that I had confused for a caterpillar that had left become a permanent fixture on me. So, I kept scrubbing it off hysterically until my collar bone became sore. Chomba had passed by to collect a bottle of milk for his grandmother Joyce. Chomba was both my classmate and we also went to Sunday school together. This mortifying show of not only my intense cry, which reached peak level every time I imagined what had caused the rash but also of my little naked self meant one thing. I knew this story would be shared at school and overshared until the next story’s worth.
This experience never left me. And subsequent torments because when you grow up in a farm, the rodents, the reptiles, and the amphibians claim their part in your life. I cannot remember the year, because I relegated these experiences into distant memory, but here they were. A group of white people arrived in our bustling village market. They might have been from ICIPE or a similar dudu institute. And they had an offer. The going price for spiders et al might have been 5 dollars. Chomba was a little grown by now. A young man who had dropped out of school and initiated into young adulthood. An idler, as thought by long suffering school abiding children like me who thought of education as the ticket to better freedom. So Chomba and his friends were enticed to this expedition of catching spiders and other crazy life-threatening species from nearby places. So, our farm was descended upon given its proximity to the market. While I reveled at how quickly they made the dollar, how did they know which banana tree to strip or which natural fence the spiders inhabited. They had a collection to deliver. Of all shapes, sizes and variety. The white people picked what they wanted, paid and left as quickly as they had come. The fear now intensified to how dangerous the farms were.
My siblings knew of this fear — and made misery out of my life. I would be minding my business the next minute I would be on a sprint into safety only to come back because they had either apprehended me to submission or stashed a live caterpillar in my clothes. The conflict within me would get worse because my name as a child was spelt adventure. I swung on trees like a bat in fig season and switched to hopping like a monkey during loquat season. My brothers helped me perfect this skill. I brought a stash of fresh fruit to school each season. A child of many talents. I could do both well in school and on trees so why not! This talent showcase went on for years. I remember my little brother, then a toddler of one year crying in shock when I feel off a branch of tree when reaching out for yellow passion. I did it for him, but he was too little to understand this venture.
Back to the chameleon story. It was a loquat season. So yellow. So big. So round. So succulent. In plenty. My father had planted them all over. And avocados. So, we had plenty. A Friday evening, and my sister was always begging for her share at the trunk. We heard her prayers sometimes. Other times her pleas reached God’s ears and nightmares came twinkling down. One days these nightmares came during the day in form of chameleons. They had lurched onto my arms. In plenty. Picture this. I am sat on a firm branch, reaching out for a heavy twig then swinging it close and eating the juicy fruit one by one. The crazy swinging of the branches must have sent the chameleons into panic. And they fought back. The grip was tight, hence the futility in rubbing them off my arm. I let go and came tumbling off the branches. Into a final fall. Still like rock with chameleons splashed around me. Although nothing was broken, things changed. The swooshing occasioned by my fall invited my father to our forbidden activities. He showed up lighting up like a storm, and with a machete. I thought the machete was aimed at my sister. My father is not a violent man. But I also knew we had long tested his patience. So, I swung into action — crying for my sister. A misplaced cry because, child! You should have wept for the tree. In minutes, the tree, its fruit and chameleons were felled. And in its place, he planted some more. The punishment for us to learn our lesson by waiting for another tree to grow into fruitiness. Sigh!
And today we are here. I was at Mzima springs last year, and my gaze into the beautiful source of the waters was interrupted by caterpillars and I have vowed not to be back. But how far can you run, people around me always ask. Good question because while increasing my plant collection, I brought the enemy right at my door step. And now my phobia is alive and well. And I handle it by writing – the best way I know how. Until it is handled by dudu spray. This is the reason I am a bird watcher. I love birds. They have never harmed me! Oh, and my sister’s day came. She got bitten by a black mamba!
WRITEthinking 
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