First of all let me warn you that in this story I kill a creature. In a nature conservancy. I’m not proud of it. A better version of me may have found some way to capture and release it somewhere it wouldn’t bother us. That was not the version of me in Lewa that night. This is the story of how I went toe to toe (to toe to toe to toe…) with a creature 1/1000th of my size….an won.
At the Lewa safari camp we had a family tent arrangement – two tents with adjoining patios – one for the kids and one for me and Crystal. As we were getting ready for bed Kai and Nora burst into our tent flustering about a scorpion in Nora’s bed. I figured there was probably some stick bug or some-such but unlikely an actual scorpion. Sure enough though, sitting next to Nora’s hot water bottle was a scorpion – no mistaking it. I was silently nominated to deal with it and Nora cleared out while Kai stayed in the tent but about 5 feet back for moral support. Not wanting him to dash away when I wasn’t looking I grabbed one of the kids shoes and approached the bed. I figured I had one shot. As I moved in, it made a bolt for it. The croc pistoned, covers flew, someone may have yelled. When the pillows and covers settled I was expecting perhaps a wounded scorpion that needed to be finished off. Instead…nothing. Not a trace of the scorpion. I can wield a croc as hard as the next guy but still when a 3 inch bug gets smooshed it will leave a trace. Things suddenly got very serious.
Crystal radioed for backup (our tent was equipped with a radio, presumably for this very purpose) while Kai and I started the hunt. The likely hiding place was Nora’s duffle bag which was open on the floor near the bed. We took the bed apart and looked all over the tent – there were few places to hide. The security guard showed up and slowly unpacked Nora’s bag. Nothing. I went through Nora’s bag. Nothing. The guard left and, it being understood that the chance of Nora sleeping in that bed was zero, Nora and Crystal went to the other tent and went to bed. Kai and I continued the search. My mind kept going back to Nora’s bag as the only place it could be. I started taking the clothes out one by one and turning each one inside out. Halfway through the scorpion jumped out of the pair of underwear I was holding and Kai and I nearly jumped out of our skin. The flashlights went wild and by the time we collected ourselves we’d lost it again. This time, however, we had his location – he had dropped back into the bag. We took everything out again and finally found him clinging to the mesh inside. Once his cover was blown he moved like the wind for cover but he was on hard ground and I was ready.
I did a brief search on scorpions the next day and came to the conclusion that this guys (small claws, big tail) was certainly venomous and a sting to any of us could have ruined the next few days and to a small person like Nora could have meant a trip to a hospital. I still get the heebee jeebees thinking about how easy it would have been for Nora to just crawl into bed. Instead they found it because Kai was showing Nora her hot water bottle (they put hot water bottles in the beds at night as it gets chilly).
