One of which involved geckos.
For about a week during the trip we stayed in the rural island community of Koh Preah. We stayed with our friendly homestay family, they were all so kind to us.
My roommate, Jackie, and I stayed in a homestay that had an extra bedroom for us to share. We would get home from work and dinner very late at night so it was always very dark. We used my headlamp for a light for the room because mine was very bright.
Of course, every night we needed to turn off the headlamp to go to bed. Once we did this, we were tuned in to the noises of the outside world around us.
The first couple of nights, we heard a really weird sound. It was unlike anything we'd ever heard. It frightened us, especially being in a new environment in a foreign country.
We told the others the next morning about this strange noise. A couple of them looked at us funny, like we were speaking Japanese. A couple of them said they heard the same thing. Only Jim, one of the group leaders, knew what it was.
"It's just a gecko. That's the sound they make, 'gecko'. It's why they're called that."
That night, when were turned off the light, we listened carefully, and sure enough:
"ge-cko!"
That was the exact noise they made! Jackie was still a bit apprehensive because they were kinda loud and ominous, so I came up with a solution.
When something seems scary, give it a name. I came up with the idea when I was little and afraid of the monster under my bed. I named her Lucy and she became my imaginary friend instead.
So we named all the geckos Earl. It quickly caught on around our group, and anytime someone heard a gecko they would say something like, "oh, quiet, Earl!" Or "no worries, Earl's just checking in on us."
Nobody was afraid anymore. And that concludes my Cambodian gecko story.
Hannah Renea
Side note for nerds: geckos say their name so that makes them real life Pokémon, right?
How cute!
ReplyDeleteYes.
Yay geckos =u=
ReplyDelete