Coackroach

Man has always been fearful of everything. His fears are of the unknown. We always stereotype things as being dangerous without experiencing the danger. Our ability to focus our attention on specific features of our environment is undoubtly important in allowing us to live peacefully. Man is a giant of the earth. His physical size and his cultural environ renders him the most powerful creature on this planet. He has the largest space on the earth; he can roam freely from India to the West Indies and from Somalia to South Eastern United State without the fear of anyone. Even though man is powerful on earth he lacks the brain to understand the little creature out there. If you might look under the soil or on top of the trees you will see there are creatures out there who survive without our help. Lift up a rock from the ground and you will witness different small creatures with different physiological making. Every major group of insect is represented when you remove the top part of the soil we walk on. A fourth grade teacher once said in the presence of sixty skinny kids ‘all insects have six legs and that they fly”. Stoic was one of those kids. When I was growing up the only insect I knew was a cockroach. A sign of filth and stigma was attached to wherever they were found. Cockroaches fascinated me ever since I was seven years old. I wondered how they managed to survive when my mom sprayed “DOOM” on them –an insecticide that was used in Kenya (Dawa ya Mende). I don’t think if my mom knew that roaches have been here long before we inhabited this planet. Roaches have inhabited this world successfully for almost 250 millions years.Yesterday I decided to research what this roaches are all about. I went downstairs to a friend’s laboratory and borrowed some Madagascar hissing roaches that he was rearing for his research .He gave me a box to put the roach on. I packed my roach in the box .At first he thought I was crazy since I am not a biologist. Biologist are always on the look out for some creature to rear for studies. He brushed me off as a someone who has nothing better to do with his time. I convinced him that I want to know what this roaches feed on. After all roaches have helped many basic studies of animal behavior, nutrition, and metabolism. Many studies have suggested that roaches are among the “brighter” insects. When people spray on a surface roaches quickly learn to avoid the sprayed surface. Isn’t that a sign of having a creative power? I bet you if those American soldiers who die everyday in Iraq would have been as “bright” as this roaches they would have avoided all bomb buried in Baghdad roads. Yesterday evening I decided to take the bus back to my apartment with my new friend whom I named “Farax”. He was large, brownish in color, and had a sickle shaped Jaw. I board the bus and exchanged some words with the bus driver. The bus driver is a good friend of mine. She is a nice sweet African American woman with southern accent .We always talk and joke on my way home. But today she was curious of what I was carrying in the box. She asked me what I was carrying. I answered her that I am carrying an insect. She was curious and wanted to know what kind of an insect it was. She convinced me to open the box even though I was against the idea. The bus was full of people back from work. I didn’t want to be the “roach guy” on the bus. I slowly opened the box and let her look at it. She screamed “oh my god! What kind of a roach is that?” .As I was explaining to her, the roach escaped out of the box. My hands were not quick to grab the roach before it escaped. Everyone started screaming “what the heck is that?”. Everyone is looking at me with a scorn. The scorn is a faint. The scorn is almost a sneer. My hands were nervous as I reached for my roach that was under the passenger’s seats .The roach made circles whenever I tried to reach it. It made a circle on one of the passengers leather shoes. He jumped over and in the process stepped on my roach. Poor Farax , Said I, he was dead now. What am I going to do now. My friend is not going to believe me if I tell him someone stepped on it in the bus. My face turned unsmiling. My face was without an apology to the passengers.