Day 21: Lizard Adventure

You'd think mature, grown up, talented and experienced women would be quite capable of dealing with a tiny lizard, but no—our experience with the lizard was harrowing enough to deserve a post all on its own.

So I go up to my room only to find four girls in it armed with brooms and mops eyeballing a tiny lizard perched on the ceiling, and glass all over my suitcase—they broke the fluorescent light fixture trying to guide the lizard to the open windows. Thing is, there are quite a lot of broken windows around the house, so it's not at all strange that something crawled its way in—probably because of the rain.

Eventually, more and more girls come to the room, drawn by the noise, and soon there are 10 of us trying to direct the three that were brave enough to try and capture/ kill the lizard.

The ceilings here are quite high—approximately 4 meters. So the girls ended up having to jump to try and push the lizard off the ceiling. Only it was so fast it kept scampering around the ceiling, which of course resulted in a corresponding scream and shuffle from the girls who then happen to be directly under the lizard.

Eventually, one brave soul managed to pin the lizard in place using the squeejy (bathroom wiper kind of like what we use to clean windows), only she ended up only cutting off its tail (which fell on my suitcase!) and having the lizard twitch manically. That image has been seared in my brain.

So understandably, the lizard gets more agitated and scurries around the room like someone is chasing it (which, of course, someone is). One of my roommates decides that's it—she's moving out of the room and even shifts her mattress and bag out into the corridor.

But elhamdulela, using the coordinated efforts of two girls, who manage to corner the lizard using a broom and a squeejy, the lizard is pushed down to a wall, and then a bucket was quickly put over it to stop it running away.

Then the search began for something to slide between the bucket and the wall so when the bucket was lifted the lizard didn't just jump straight out. My cornflakes box was deemed the most suitable, and in seconds it was torn apart and between the bucket and the wall.

Now we come to the most delicate part of the situation—tossing the lizard out of the window. But it seems the experience was too much for the girls holding the bucket, who instead of just removing the makeshift cornflakes lid, decide to throw the entire bucket out of the window instead.

Mission accomplished. It only took 20 minutes, 4 girls, a can of insect spray, a chopped off tail, a broken light fixture, a torn up cornflakes box and a tossed bucket.

Poor hapless lizard. Half an hour of fighting for its life, and it came out of it with no tail. But at least it lives another day. Just hope the goats don't eat it.