Aug 7. 2014. Cockroach

I do not like cockroach. I am freaked out whenever I find cockroach in my room. Since I came to Calman lodge, I have been killing at least 2 cockroaches every single day. Spanking them with flip-flop is the best way to take care of them as quickly as possible. However, they run away so fast and hide in the corner; in this case, I use insect killer spray to kill them remotely. But wait… do they do harm to me? Not really… but they look really intimidating. I do not want them to be in my room. When I lie down on the bed, cockroach slowly crawl on the wall, right left side of me. I am so frightened to see them and I hastily shoot out insect killer spray to eliminate them. If the size of cockroach is big, I could not dare to hit their bodies with my flip-flop. It was worthwhile to buy this spray, raid; however, they do not die easily and make a frantic last-ditch effort to survive.

Last night, I killed 4 cockroaches, on the floor, in the restroom, in the closet, on the corner. I suddenly felt weird. I kill them everyday, and spray all crack in the door in advance to keep their entering from outside; where do they come from? I guess there should be some cockroach hatchery and cockroaches are hatched out somewhere in my room. If it were true, eradicating cockroach in my room would be really hard. The sizes varied; small one must be growing up soon. I decided to ask my life saver, Denice, who is in different guesthouse, to know if discovering cockroach everyday is common in Tanzania.

“Denice, I see cockroaches every single day in my room, and I just killed 4 cockroaches in this evening. Do you see these guys in your room often?”

“Yuck! Sorry to hear that. I see them in the kitchen (not a lot but they are there) but I haven’t seen more than 4 in my room the entire time I’ve been here.”

“That’s bad for me because I kill them every day. What do you think? Did they lay eggs some spot in my room and hatch every day? Should I ask changing the room in Calman lodge? lol?”

“Yes, ask to change rooms. If you still see them in the other room them you should tell Licky.”

Obviously, killing 4 cockroaches at once turned out to be abnormal, and I saw one more cockroach this morning (a total of 5 cockroaches has been killed since last night), so asked lodge manager, Dora, to change the room in the morning. I followed her in a maze, (I did not even know there were a lot of room through a narrow passage) and came into the new room. It looked somebody has just left this room, so it needed to be cleaned; it was a smaller room but it was simpler that had fewer hide zone for cockroaches. Hopefully, expecting no more cockroaches in this room, I got to work.

Suddenly, my cockroach laboratory two years ago came to remembrance. When I was a biology undergraduate student, I took Comparative Physiology Lab class. The instructor, Neil Vickers, was a dean of biology department, and he taught interesting animal experiment – leopard frog gastrocnemius, bullfrog heart, moth thermoregulation, and cockroach neurophysiology – to students. Somehow, cockroach lab was extended to two-week experiment, and I had to catch, dissect, observe giant cockroach and submit cockroach neurophysiology report during two weeks. I did not quite remember what the experiment was, so I traced back my dim memory and tried to find those materials in “Utah” folder in my laptop. There you go! I found cockroach protocol, my report, and some references that I read. The experiment was to research large antenna-like structures, cerci, at the rear of the cockroach. The questions were about describing the cockroaches’ behavior, recording activities in the ventral nerve cord, calculating the conduction velocity of impulses, recording neurophysiological signal, and explaining the biphasic wave. I pulled up cockroach dissertations to remind myself that what contents were written.

“Organization of the Giant Axons of the Cockroach Periplaneta Americana” by M.E. Spira, I. Parnas and F. Bergmann (1969)

“Conduction Velocities and their Temperature Coefficients in Sensory Nerve Fibres of Cockroach Legs” by K.M. Chapman and J.H. Pankhurst (1967)

“Giant Fibre and Small Fibre Pathways Involved in the Evasive Response of the Cockroach, Periplaneta Americana” by D. Dagan and I. Parnas (1970)

“Responses of Giant Interneurons of the Cockroach Periplaneta Americana to Wind Puffs of Different Direction and Velocities.” By Joanne Westin, Jonathan J. Langberg, and Jeffrey M. Camhi (1977)

I had read more than that at that time. Certainly, cockroaches’ sensory nerve must have been an unknown world to biologists all over the world from 1960s to 1970s. Understanding response and mechanism of cockroach’s Giant Interneurons will make big contribution to human being’s health and longevity.

Biology 3325: Laboratory 7. Cockroach Neurophysiology. - University of Utah

Last at night, I came back to the new room! I turned on light, and looked cautiously round. Oh… you guys… here too! One guy was sitting on the new toilet paper, the other guy was already running away to the corner. My insect killer, raid, was urgently summoned, it attacked them without mercy. They fell flat on their back one by one, and other unfound guys exposed their appearance and died slowly near the raid spray zone. I lifted the corner of a blanket and searched through the wall; oh, there you are. I also sprayed to that guy. I hurriedly kicked these 5 corpses out of my room. Where an earth did they come from?

What do you think? I have always kept in mind that circumstances in Africa may not be the same as the place where I was. I have tried to understand people’s life here, eat street food, and practice new language. However, I am not ready to say hi to cockroaches gladly and leave them alone. Nevertheless, finding a better place not to see those guys is nonsense to me; if I seek better things and catch up with my past non-insect life, then, why I am here? I am in Africa. Avoiding unusual situation – but it is common to inhabitants – can be interpreted that I am losing the chance of experiencing unique lifestyle. If living friendly with mosquito, lizard, and cockroaches is necessary in Africa, then… all right, so be it!

Praising biologists for their dedication of researching cockroaches’ giant and small axon, nerve fibers of their legs, and the velocity of their action potential, I will try to look at cockroaches in a different way. They must be valuable to some extent. Who knows? They may (or may be not, hopefully) become alternative food resource to compensate for a food shortage in the future. Even so, I do not want to be a good friend with them now. I need more time to see them as equal beings. I am sorry, Mr. cockroaches. If I see you, I have to kill you!