A few years ago, far more than I am willing to accept, I spent a summer in Tunisia. I was a student and part of an organization that was a branch of a global entity. Besides many other benefits, the one holding the highest appealing to my 20-year-old was a month of cultural exchange. Or what is the same: I would go to a country for a month while someone else would come to mine. I have previously shared with you some of the places I visited while there, while I have never before spoken of Bizerte. For example, there is a dedicated post on the fancy and touristy Sidi Bou Said. And also, there is a second one the two very shocking faces of the Medina of Tunis.
Even though I visited many places by myself or with some of the other 30 people in the exchange, every weekend, we had an activity planned by the organization. For example, one weekend we would all prepare a typical dish from our country. Yes, you know I love my food and considering how good it is, it was not a problem. Also, one weekend we went on a trip deep into the Sahara and into an Oasis. A beautiful experience that it was. Another weekend, we went to Bizerte. One of the guys in the organization was a relative of an hotel owner that was under reformation. So… we could squeeze in for half the price!
The beginning in Bizerte was promising
So, let’s just imagine the situation. Twenty plus almost teenagers that have been living together for the past weeks. They go to the beach in Bizerte for the weekend and discover these beautiful tiny cabins and a whole beach for themselves. Paradise. Or so we thought. We were not in the main part of Bizerte, but it was in the same area, and it was beautiful.
Over the weeks it is normal in any sort of society that you end up sharing more time with one or other group of people. For some reason I spent lots of time with lots of French people. And of course, with the Spanish ladies. So when they left us to pick the cabins we already had the groups. Unfortunately, what we did not realize what we were almost 30 people to sleep in 6 cabins. No problems with that, if there would have been 5 beds per cabin. But no, there were only two. So you can imagine how nice that was. Bizerte was presenting us with some challenges.
Fortunately, there was a sofa on each cabin, so we decided to remove the pillows. Then, we decided that two of us would be sleeping on the floor with the pillows and someone else on the sofa without the pillows. To be honest, today I think back at it and I am still amazed on how little we needed to keep up the good spirits. Today, my back would be destroyed for the whole day and would have slept so little that I would snap at the first comment from anyone.
Anyways, back to the story. Back then we decided to play paper rock scissors to decide who would get the bed. Let’s just say that this writer lost and ended up on the floor. The pillows were not even flat and so it felt like being on a curvy and hard bed. I told myself hey, we are going to be out on the party and by the bonfire most night. You don’t need to worry about being too uncomfortable, it will be fine.
Ok. Let’s continue
Back to when I lost the paper-scissors-rock game, some of us decided to have a quick shower and put on some make up. We wanted to be in our best for the bonfire in Bizerte. One of the girls was showering while I was by the mirror applying some sort of makeup, when I saw something dark in the floor of the bathroom. I only registered it with my peripheral vision and when I bent to look what that was, I could not see anything. Well, it must have been my imagination. I thought.
The girl in the shower finished and when she was stepping out of the shower she slipped. Then, she grabbed that column of whatever material that is below the sink to stabilize herself. And that led to the reveal of what I had seen before: a massive flat cockroach of about 10cm (about 4inch for you Americans) that scared by the movement, decided to move towards us. You can imagine the picture, both of us screaming like crazy. Running out of the cabin in panic. To be honest, that would not have been my reaction today, but what do you want, I was 20.
Anyway, a couple of the local guys went into the cabin and tried to find THE monster. Unfortunately, with no luck. Reluctantly, we went back in, finished our business and then left as fast as possible. We had dinner, and then a kind of a party by a bonfire next to the beach. And a few drinks. Truth be told, I don’t usually drink that much, and with only a couple of drinks my paranoia levels were high. Real high.
En garde! with a torch…
After trying to keep everybody around the bonfire as much as I could for purely selfish reasons, I finally ended up giving up and going back in. My friend, the girl who was in the shower when it all happened was lucky enough to sleep on the bed, and that gave her a false sense of security. But, if you recall, I was on the floor on the wavy pillows. And somehow, I was convinced that it was the perfect place for a massive cockroach to hide. I moved everything when I arrived. Tried to be very noisy to make any possible creeper leave the pillows. And then I proceeded to try and fall asleep.
As I just told you, paranoia levels were pretty high. And I have always had problems sleeping. What happened then? I spent most night screening the floor of the cabin with my torch. Then, I would manage to fall asleep for 5 minutes or less and I would start dreaming of cockroaches running over me. What lead to my waking up again extremely stressed and even more paranoid. And then I would start screening the floor again.
Whether or not the bugger was still around… I cannot tell. What I can tell you was that it was a very traumatizing night. Imagine that I still remember it crystal clear and it was more than a decade ago!
The aftermath
So… as you can imagine, I was destroyed the next day. Of the 4-5h that we could have managed to sleep I think I may have slept for about 30 minutes. Besides, I was on the floor so it was also not the comfiest place to be. The next morning, we didn’t have big plans. We were supposed to have breakfast and then chill by the beach since we would be returning to Tunis in the evening. And so that’s what I did.
After a nice but simple breakfast I decided to head to the beach and enjoy the sun. We were alone in the beach, but we were still on a Muslim country, so while I would never do topless there, once I was lying on my front, I did untie the top of the bikini to avoid marks in my tan. Obviously, what happened next was that I felt asleep. Like a rock. Or a baby. I slept so well, that hours passed, so many that the tide went up.
Anyone wants to guess how I woke up?
Well, I am going to guess you are right. A slightly bigger wave than any other before covered me up to my waist. Of course, I was ripped from the arms of sleep so dramatically that the first thing I did was stand up and leave. But let’s not forget that since I didn’t want any marks on my tan, I had untied my bikini top. Yes, I run away and the bikini was left behind. Fortunately, I was alert enough to both cover my chest with the speed of light and grab my bikini from the floor. Fortunately, only a small part of the group realized what had happened so I was able to keep most of my dignity. Although the jokes lasted until the end of the trip!
I was able to take the whole situation with a pinch of humor and, to date, I still laugh about it. Despite this, although Bizerte was a beautiful beach, when I think of that weekend that cockroach is still the first thing that comes to mind!
What about you? have you had any other encounter with little creepers?
Tell me about it on the comments!
And I hope you enjoyed my little story!
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