From the jungle to the desert

 

Having left Thailand in a hurry, and having never gotten along well with my dad, and having never liked this town nor the desert, I wasn't looking forward to moving here. I rebelled emotionally, like the teenager I was when I lived here thirty years ago. 

But I'm not the same person, and neither is dad, and we're both shocked at the fact we do get along now. We had our three days of merciless fights at the beginning, but after that - this is like a miracle; we both tweaked and softened and adjusted, and it's been two weeks and it's fine. I can hardly believe that.

None of the things I feared happened. The house is still a hoarder's depressing lair, dusty and full of junk and disappointment; but somehow, when he and I get along, that doesn't bother me - no little because I tend to spread order wherever I go. I used to work in arranging and re-ordering and de-hoarding people's homes; it's was many years and a young, healthy spine ago, but while I can't carry much, the urge - and, frankly, passion - for it remains. And dad panics when anything in his hoard is moved, but is also touchingly relieved when I declutter the house, one square meter at a time. 

Today I was given permission to bin the dried flowers on the living room table. They've been there for twenty years. They are the colour of dust and the air of despair. Mum put them there, but mum passed away almost two decades ago, and mum wouldn't have wanted a florist's bad dream overshadowing her pretty, sunlit living room.

It's probably a good thing to work on getting back that 'sunlit' part.

This leaves only one thing that troubles me here; it's so tiny (oh, the puns) that I'm honestly grateful those are the things I can complain about; it's not a 4k euro hospital bill per night, nor is it a life-threatening infection, nor is any loved one ill or dead. It's both prosaic and hilariously medieval: we have bedbugs.

Bedbugs!

Dad lives here alone, and somewhen during the past few months, presumably, the house got infected by one of the service people. Dad hardly feels the bites so he didn't care much about the bugs, who founded a flourishing colony in the living room and reached truly astounding numbers. 

This is a large house - five rooms - but dad only stays in the living room and kitchen, so the other rooms stayed untouched. Until, that is, I moved in - a day after he promised he'd had the place exterminated. Spoiler: he didn't.

Two weeks, a dozen bites and a few hundred dead bugs later, he agreed to call an exterminator. He'll be here tomorrow. The notion of sleeping in a bed where insects crawl on me is... is... not something my modern-raised self can take easily. I soak the bed in plant-based repellants and douse my skin with deet-based repellants and unhappily crawl between the sheets, and try not to think; not of the bites from before I used the repellants, nor of the fact that the exterminator, who came to inspect things today, found three baby bedbugs in my mattress. 

On the other hand - it's very funny. It also gives me a new perspective on medieval life and great roleplaying material, and I'm not joking that I find those upsides meaningful. It also makes a good story, gives me an excuse to avoid any face-to-face socializing (that suits me right now) and is almost as good an ice-breaker in conversations as 'My knee-scrape got infected by parrot-poop. But, more than anything -  it's not on par with any of the scary things that happened last year. It's a nuisance, not a fright. 

*

This was a move from the humid tropical jungles of Thailand to the desert shores of the Red Sea; from maximum humidity to one of the driest places on earth. I miss never being cold, but I delight at never sweating. I am unhappy about my skin's reaction to the extreme dryness, but am happy to be among people whose mentality I understand effortlessly. I thought I'd feel danger in this house; instead, I feel oddly safe - in this country. Even with the war. 

The sea here is deep blue, the Edom mountains backdrop a cardboard cutout of reds, like a scenery from Mars. The reef is famous for the rich marine life, and it's all considered very pretty. I never saw it as such; I was a teen dreaming of mythical Wales, of knights and fairies and castles and green, cool nature. Years later I learnt I dislike the cold, and developed an unexplained passion for tropical shores and jungles. 

This city, this scenery, isn't what my dreams have ever been made of. But it is beautiful; the city's buildings are low-built, without eyesore skyscrapers, and most of them use the local pinkish rock, and if I ever feel like exotic adventure I need only take the bus down to the beach or the Underwater Observatory. I'm sorry I didn't get to explore the jungle and see the tropical beaches of the island I lived on for 18 months, but, as forced um-immigratings go, this is not a bad one. A pretty one, if I keep my eyes open and my heart in the present. 

And last, a medical update - I'll have bone-mapping next week, to see if any bone is touched by infection, and a specialist appointment a week later. Whatever happened or happens, the medicine here is much better than anything Thailand offers, and is free. That, no less than the rest, is reason for peace of mind.