Maybe it’s the heat affecting my mind, but sometimes one of my senses switches off or gets confused and makes me think that what I’m seeing or hearing in Tena is not the Amazon but rather something out of an apocalyptic movie….
Picture this if you may…
We live in a small neighbourhood, perhaps six houses to a block and relatively grown up with tropical vegetation. The heat of the day mixes with the cool of the night to produce wisps of moisture in the air that float past the orange glow of an odd street lamp. The neighbourhood for a moment is unusually still except for the buzz of insects that rises in crescendos before receding.
I’m sitting having dinner, I hear an unfamiliar sound a bit like an overenthusiastic lawnmower. The sound keeps growing closer and then further away and then suddenly it is upon us.. It passes the entrance to the kitchen. The sound is coming from the back of a moving vehicle carrying a large vat of liquid and two people in white suits wearing gas masks. Their radical appearance seems to indicate on a purely intuitive level that they are spraying something incredibly toxic into the air. They speed past up and down the rows of houses spraying into each yard. The dark semi-lit neighbourhood fills with a solemn mist. Dogs howl. There’s something rather apocalyptic about it.
I find out they are spraying to kill the mosquitoes that carry dengue fever. However the image of men in white suits with gas masks, mixed (in only the way dreams can) with the hourly school bell waking me from a lethargic slumber which sounds very much like an authentic air-raid siren, and the giant frogs (the size of a small children) that produce giant croaks as you walk past all make for great fodder for a scene in a scary movie!
No comments:
Post a Comment