A Bug's Life

I don't know if this picture truly shows how large the grasshoppers are here, but let's just say that if one of them tried to take away my food that I wouldn't win. There aren't any in our room, but we do have to drown a new little village of ants in our shower each day before we can get in. I think that the geckos have taken care of most of the other bugs, because we haven't even seen a mosquito yet. Yesterday during afternoon yoga, one of the ceiling lizards fell into the lap of the guy sitting next to me. That seemed like a big event until evening class - half of the students were laying down on the wood floor with their eyes closed for a demonstration of meditation technique, and the other half (myself included) were seated next to the opposite wall to observe. While we were silently watching, a scorpion that was about sixteen inches long (and no, that is not the "I caught a fish this big" exaggeration) crawled down a window pane to the wood floor and started making its way toward one of the girls laying there oblivious, eyes closed in relaxation. Two of the assistants intercepted it in time, and the flow continued uninterrupted. Up until that moment, I felt like I was holding calm in my left hand and inner peace in my right, but then I think that I gripped them so tightly that they flew out the window. I'm still looking for them...even if just a piece of lint lands on my shoulder I start flailing around trying to brush off an imaginary curved tail. And I might be developing a new technique of wide-eyed meditation.