Close Encounters of the Cockroach Kind

A lowlight (as opposed to a highlight) of living in the tropics - an episode I like to call a close encounter of the cockroach kind: A few days ago, there I was, minding my own business, when I spotted a HUGE cockroach in my bathroom. I must confess, I really don't like them. I've managed to get over my aversion to any vertebrate or spiders or bees/wasps etc. but I still have issues with cockroaches. It's visceral. (It may stem from an experience in Madagascar involving a cupboard in one of our apartments that at first glance had a back wall that moved...enough said)

This cockroach was, no joke, 5 cm long. (U.S. translation = 2 inches) Now, I realize that I am, in fact, 178 cm long, which is considerably larger than this cockroach but remember, 5 cm is long for a roach. This guy/gal had a gimpy leg as well, making him/her pretty slow. Regardless of his/her handicap, I still made a loud sound and Biljana, the other girl living in the apartment, came running. She helped me shove it into a paper sack. We took it outside and our night guard came running to see what the commotion was. He started laughing a fit to kill himself when he found out what the problem was and after getting himself under control he disposed of the bag.

(A bad picture of the cockroach peeking at me from around a bucket)

We thought the excitement over although I did comment (prophetically as it turned out) that cockroaches rarely travel alone. Sure enough, an hour later I was getting into the shower and I went to adjust the shower-head when I noticed ANOTHER 5 cm long cockroach sitting right on the shower-head, wiggling its nasty long antennae at me. I made another loud noise (a loud screaming-type noise if the truth be known) and Biljana came running again. We tried our paper bag exterminator trick again but sadly, THIS cockroach did not have a gimpy leg. She/He/It jumped OUT of the bag and ran somewhere. We screamed really loudly (again) I'm sorry to say.

Unfortunately we never saw where she/he/it went so, consequently, I couldn't shower there and had to bathe in the other bathroom. (Highly pathetic I know, but it just felt icky)