On this expedition in Balak, the sleeping area for scum, sorry, volunteers was a large dormitory room. The whole house was wooden in fact. It was a longhouse, built on stilts in the sea. The stilts are just long enough to keep the floorboards out of the water during a high-tide. Not a high-tide in a storm unfortunately.
I say a large dormitory, but in reality it was just about big enough to hang everyone’s mosquito nets next to each other, and leave about 50cm to navigate between them. The days on the expedition were often short – partly because the generator and hence lights would be turned off at 10pm, partly because you would have done a fair amount of work from 6am. So theoretically, you could get 8 hours sleep a night, unless you were one of the 5:30am swimming / yoga nutters. But somehow the 8 hours never materialised for me.
Sometimes, there would be no breeze at all, and it would be roasting hot, and you’d lie awake, drenched in sweat, watching fleas jump up and down from your chest. If there was no breeze, the insects would swarm in, although cockroaches never needed an excuse. They would appear from between the gaps between the floorboards, invade your pile of mattresses which lay on top of the bare floor, and then bury themselves in whatever you were wearing. You might wake up with Emily thrashing around trying to get one out of her pyjamas, or wake up batting one from your face.
Other nights, there might be a pig or monkey attack. Perhaps the two species joined forces to try to outflank the two dogs, and get at the chickens. “Ya schwien, vee vill perform ze pinzer movement on diesen hund. Vee vill attack from ze treez, providing coconut bombardment ov zees confounded hounds!” Whatever great military tactics were being employed by the forces of anti-chickendom, the result was the same – a running and barking battle which would wake us light-sleepers from our light sleep.
Early mornings, the chickens might get their Daylight Saving Time confused, and start crowing far too early. Or the mange-ridden cat, Porridge, might decide he wanted his porridge a few hours before the allotted 6:30am breakfast time. He was ugly as sin, and even the warm-hearted vet nurse (a self confessed 10 out of 10 religious type) thought that he should be put out of his misery. The excrutiating noises of pain and anguish that the under-porridged cat emitted would conjure up images of cats being interrogated by the gestapo in the bleary eyed volunteers. Maybe the pigs had captured him. But no, he’d be parading by the side of my mattress, complaining he was hungry. We never threw him in the sea to keep him quiet, normally because we’d be intercepted by a cat lover, but I did learn to take a handy vessel of water to bed to throw at him. I think he’s dead now.
Some nights, a few gypsy volunteers might stay up to look at the stars, and read poetry to each other by moon or torchlight. This would infuriate a few of the rest, and there’d be a series of pleas to be quiet. Followed by demands, then maybe threats. I think they should have thrown the late night poetry class in the sea with the cat, but they never did. The glowering barely contained rage from people deprived of their sleep at the breakfast table was always a source of amusement though.
Personally, I’d just wake up in the middle of the night for no obvious reason. I’d be confused about where I was – the sound of the waves underneath the floorboards would make me think I’d fallen asleep on the beach again. So I’d look around to get my bearings so that I could get back to my mattress. I’d be able to see light from the open doors and windows of the dormitory, and I’d get confused as to which way I was pointing. Then I might figure that I was in the dorm, but had strayed off my mattress. I was terrified that I might inadvertantly crawl off and end up in my neighbour’s mosquito net. Probably not as terrified as Susie was though, which might explain the strange whimpering noises she made in her sleep.
If it wasn’t the animals, the people, or the heat that ruined any chance of a good night’s sleep, it was the storms. Tropical storms are awesome – first the wind suddenly rises, an enormous black cloud appears, and within a minute, the cloud divebombed our tiny island. Most noticeably on our tin roof. It was like trying to sleep in a popcorn pan. But sleep wasn’t an option. All of our fresh water came from the sky, and was collected in a large container from roof run-off. When this was full, we’d have to direct rain from the gutter into barrels, as the water container wasn’t half large enough to hydrate 11 volunteers and up to 11 staff. So we’d all pile out trying to gather water in whatever container we could. In the early days, when the faithful still believed in personal hygiene, eveyone would rush out even at 2am to have a shower. It was hysterical – a dozen people in their swimsuits in the dark, holding sponges and covering themselves in suds. It was a calculated risk as to when to start rinsing, as the storms would stop as quickly as they began. If you timed it wrong, it’d be back to sea-water for rinsing, assuming the tide was in…
All in all, quality of sleep was not great, but it was funny. People shouting “Fuck OFF!” at insects in the middle of the night would always raise a titter from those lying awake. Ah, those summer nights.