Wildlife in Banepa

Banepa.

My first encounter with the wildlife here was within the first 5 minutes after getting here.  I tried to share the sidewalk with a cow.  Bad idea.  Turns out they really do have the right of way...and I got swatted in the face by a stinky cow tail.  It’s ridiculous because they poop all over the sidewalk between my house and the hospital.  But not only do the cows poop everywhere, there are people who think it is a good idea to relieve themselves right in front of my house.  Sheesh!  That is not the view I wanted in the morning, nor is it the smell I want to walk by on the way to work.

Speaking of my house, there is also wildlife in my house.  There are flying ants that consistently drown in my toilet every day.  I had a worm in my bathroom, ants in my kitchen, and a couple mosquitos.  But I really don’t mind any of these; it’s the demon possessed spiders I can’t handle.  They’re quite large, although not fat.  Just wide, long-legged pale spiders that run at me at the speed of sound, on the ground.  Their bodies look like a large tick before it sucks up any blood.  Disgusting!  Well, let’s just say I might break down and spend some rupees on the Nepali equivalent of RAID.  This morning after I finished running away from spiders, I found a grasshopper/beetle/cicada-like bug with pinchers on my screen door.  I flicked him off with my sandal and as soon as he hit the ground, a bird came and snatched him up, crunch crunch, yum.

Oh, speaking of the birds, there are millions of them.  I am not into birding, in fact, I really can’t think of any good purpose for birds, except eating bugs.  I have been pooped on a fair amount of times in my lifetime, and in my short time in Nepal, I have already nearly been assaulted by bird poop TWICE!  You have to understand, they cut down trees here because too many birds sit in them and the poop on the ground underneath gets too thick.  Yeah....a few too many birds.  Also they die in really inconvenient places, like on my back porch and on the sidewalk next to the cow poop.

Speaking of cows....

No but really, I love it here.