Mongolian Flies

Photo: Sander sleeping in bed, Henan Mongol Autonomous County (August, 2010).

When I got sick in Xining, Sander took care of me.

Now Sander is sick. Really sick. Far worse than I was. I bought a thermometer and took his temperature. He has a fever. He's really in bad shape. I'll save him the embarrassement and won't describe it. In case his condition worsens, I scoped out the hospital. It's down the street. It closes at 5:30 pm. They seemed like good people. Meanwhile, Sander is taking his Ciprofloxicin, and he's sleeping.

Because the hotel's, and maybe this part of town's, water supply shuts down for hours daily, I only left Sander to make three water runs and pick up supplies. Otherwise, I'm just laying here as Sander sleeps. I wake him up periodically to get him to drink the oral rehydration solutions I mixed up with bottled water, salt and sugar. He did this for me in Xining. (Although he recently admitted that he mixed up the sugar and salt amounts. It tasted like saltwater, but I drank it anyway.) Meanwhile, things are quiet. I hear Sander breathing. Good.

I'm caught up with my journal.

I'm not in the mood to read.

I watch the flies.

The flies.

We have three or four types of flies in our room. Their numbers have been reduced, however. I bought a swater today on a water run. I had to. When I woke up and saw six flies on Sander's heavy thick white quilt, I found the site disturbing. I've been getting Genghis on the flies. Not all the flies. I'm selective with my wrath.

The first type of flies are the ones Sander noticed and wrote a humorous piece in his journal about. He named them Mongolian flies. I look forward to what he says on his blog when he writes about them. We've never seen anything like them. They hover in a self-selcted imaginary sphere in the three-dimensional center of our room and dance. It's fly ballet. Elegant. Beautiful. Inspiring. They interact mostly with themselves. They glide and dart but only within that imaginary sphere. They leave us alone. They leave our food alone. The only things they don't leave alone is the second type of fly.

I call these the bumble-flies. They are huge, fat, obnoxious, clumsy, juicey, and loud. They arrive one at a time. When one comes near the Mongolian flies, they attack. The bumbles bumble away and bounce off the wall. Sometimes they hit my head with a thud. I splatter the bumbles with my swatter. They explode. This leaves me with a mess to clean up. But I'm glad to do it. I hate bumbles in our room. All flies have easy access to our room because there is no screen on our window. Our room would be impossible during the day with the window shut, so we keep the window open. We open an invitation to flies of all sorts. They like to visit. We provide good things to eat. Our room fills with flies.

The third type of fly is the common house fly. Unlike the unnerving buzz of the bumbles, the houseflies fly silently. Stealthfully. They land on our faces in the early morning and wake us up. I hate waking up to houseflies. I cringe at the site of them on Sander. I wonder if they landed on garbage and then on our spoons, chopsticks, mugs and glasses. Maybe they contributed to Sander getting sick. I grab the swatter. I go Genghis. Carcasses are bestrewn across the floor. Legs are still sticking to the walls. I put a sign outside our window. It has a crushed fly...and says: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.

There might be a forth type of fly. It's narrow. It bites. It reminds me of those biting flies on the beach of the American eastern seaboard. But I could be wrong. I need more data.

I could say that I'm sick of flies, but that would be a gross generalization. I love Sander's dancing Mongolian flies. They're welcome anytime.

Photo: Dead flies, Henan Mongol Autonomous County (August, 2010).