Had A Scorpion in My Hand the Other Day

I picked up a pair of shorts that had been sitting out on my patio waiting for stain treatment for a couple of weeks. As I looked closer, there was this little creature sitting there on my shorts; slowly but assuredly I determined it was a dead, baby scorpion. The curved tail was a dead give-away. Flicking it off my shorts with my hand, the critter went flying through the air and landed on the patio beneath me. As it crash landed, the thing started crawling frantically to the closest pile of rubbish to hide under. (Their favorite habitat). This sent shutters through my body - the venomous creature was alive and had been in my hands and very close to my face!

Last weekend I was on a mission interviewing our friends to find out how many times they had been stung by a scorpion in their lifetimes. Sadly, it is a cruel fact here in Mexico and something these people have to live with. But, to my surprise, the Mexican people do NOT appear afraid of them. It is true that scorpions have the power to take lives and do successfully every year. During my interview with Enock, he told me that a person has 2 hours from the point of sting to total loss of respiration; the stung must immediately rush to a nearby hospital to be treated with the anecdote. The statistics are online on how many people die each year of a scorpion sting, and the percent is remarkably higher in Mexico than other places.

The results of my interviews:

• Fernando- 5 times
• Raralamee- 6 times
• Esther - 5 times
• Enock - 10 times

Eeek! To me, that sounds like it is just a matter of time before... I think it is the scorpion, the lizards, and all the creatures in Mexico that would never allow me to make a home here permanently. I am still not sleeping well at night, full well knowing that all of them come out at night crawling the floors and the walls. It is always an adventure to use the bathroom or grab a drink of water in the middle of the night. I make sure that several feet in front of me is well lit while walking through the house like a detective. The entire family has learned to inspect the floor in front of them with every step, night and day. One night I looked up from my bed, and there was a lizard right above me on the ceiling. I have seen them on the wall above my head where my bed connects to it (we have no headboard that places a barrier between us and the wall). As I toss and turn at night, I am afraid to smack my hand or arm against the wall to bump up against with something that is breathing. Mike reports that I will wake him up at night requiring that he take care of something on the wall. I do not know what he is talking about. I cannot imagine a better means to stretch this American woman than for her to have to co-dwell in the same quarters as scorpions. Well, maybe venomous snakes could be worse. Oh, yeah, they live in Mexico as well.