สัตว์ป่าท้องถิ่น - Local Wildlife

And by local I mean in the school. This is a short post about what it is like to live in a school, on the out skirts of small town in tropical Thailand.

1. Bugs

Bugs are no longer a big deal. I am used to having over ten itchy bites at one time and I have learned that even though some of the girls have only had one bite in four months that I can't blame them (sorry Lindsay). I have bug bites just about everywhere, palms of my hands, face, ears, you name it! One night we left on our light on and our windows were still open and we had a complete infestation! All of us helped clean up and we have always closed the windows in time since then. I am excited to no longer have applying bug spray multiple times a day be necessary.

It is difficult to see, but these are all bugs!

Eight bites on one side of my foot, from one night. It reminds me of chicken pox.

2. Bigger bugs

So we have found a few large bugs in the school as well. One was a praying mantis and it fell on my head from the cupboard! It was the largest one I had ever seen and I just took it outside and released it, but it took a while to catch, it was very fast! We also found the biggest spider I have ever seen! It really scared us girls and we have seen multiple around the school since then. The cleaning ladies thankfully killed this one the day we found it inside the school. The students and teachers didn't even act like the spider was a big deal and were thoroughly entertained by our reaction to it. 

Praewa being very brave!

It was SO scary!

3. Bats

We had a pet bat for about a week and then it disappeared as discreetly as it appeared. It stayed in the light fixture right above our bathroom door in the hallway, so we just kept our doors closed and he didn't bother us. 

4. Lizards

These lizards are all over the school! We see around 10 of them in our room throughout the day. It is not an unusual occurrence for one of us girls to randomly inform the other of a lizard being right above her head on the wall (they are notorious for jumping on us when we least expect it). They shower, eat and practically live with us and we all think they are kind of cute (not to mention they eat bugs)! They also make an interesting chirping noise that has just became a part of our life here. The other week we found a very small dead lizard in our toaster and we simply cleaned it out and continued using the toaster. One day I might be disgusted by that but here, and now it is just normal. 

This little guy was SO tiny!

I have waited to do this post because I know that my mom worries a lot about me here, but I figured due to the fact that I leave Thailand in a week (still having mixed feelings about that) that it would be ok. So mom, don't worry, I have lived like this for 3 months and 3 weeks, one more week won't hurt!