How could anyone get used to the mass of white reptilian bellies meshed against the window screen?  The  mosquito net cocooning her bed, the sweat-tortured sheets, the rains of la grande pluie machine gunning down on the corrugated zinc roof, the smells of rotting vegetation in the dense forest, all had become too familiar after one year. But she would never become blasé about the swarm of geckoes and tetes rouges pressed against the window screen just above her. They remained constant in her dreams, her cauchmars, churning, slithering, hissing,  growing to dinosauric  proportions.

      The rain exploded on the roof. She did not hear Blais pull his bicycle up on the small clay tile veranda, drop his muddy sandals, and pad on his hard bare feet into the house. She knew, nevertheless, he would be there, arose, cracked the bedroom door, and saw him, a small boy-like man of thirty  perhaps, already rattling about the kitchen. So much noise for just instant coffee, toasted baguette, and a sliced up orange. They exchanged their bon jours and ca vas. Little between them had changed since the day she arrived at the district health center. Neither the New Year’s bonus, nor the visit of Blais’ wife and baby daughter for a painfully awkward tea, seemed to have made any difference in their relationship. Everyone had a least one domestic, both the expats and the African functionaries of  any level, and  she had no choice since Blais had come with the four room Health Center bungalow. Still she would never get used to him rummaging about, waiting on her every need like she was some white bush princess. Yes, he did save her time, precious even in the slow moving forest region. When could she in her long days at the clinic go to the market? He bargained well, found the best produce and avoided the toughest long-walked beef. He kept back the ever-encroaching outdoors, constantly sweeping out the pervasive ochre dirt brought down from the Sahara by the Harmitan winds. Now, in the rainy season, he battled against the march of ants, the rhinoceros beetles and all other forms of gigantic insect life that the resident lizards spurned. He kept her nurse’s uniform spotless and pressed, her other clothes such as they were neatly folded in the chest of drawers. How different from her messy days in dorms and in nurses warrens.