A Mosquito Philosophy

Mosquitoes. I don’t like them very much. In fact, I don’t like them at all.

You’d think that, having lived all of my twenty-three years in the Philippines (the tropics!), I’d be used to these blood suckers. That the marks they leave would go unnoticed on my dark brown skin. You’d think that I no longer flinch at the sight of their scaled wings, and long, thin legs, or that I have mastered the sort of willpower needed to keep from scratching the terrible itch of their bite.

But I am not that hardened.

After two hospitalisations (one when I was eight and another when I was sixteen; now I dread turning twenty-four), I am actually more intolerant of mosquitoes than ever. Contracting dengue fever is not fun. Days, weeks, years since palely emerging from a Quezon City hospital with little nasty-looking, syringe-related dots on my arms, fingers, and rear, but also with the fortune of not having fallen as a WHO statistic, I have come to nurture a great fear of basins with stagnant water; of broken air conditioners, and holes in the window screen; of my grandmother’s unkempt living room. With exposed legs, I feel vulnerable and unnerved.

Mosquitoes have also caused me much mental irritation. You know what it’s like when you just have to think about something all the time? My habits have taken a prophylactic turn; when I read, for example, I have to swat away at the air after every five pages – my legs after every two. On bad days I cannot relax without first rubbing repellent; on worse nights I cannot sleep without a blanket. And how can I drink my San Miguel al fresco when the brittle evening breeze is dishonoured by the hovering omnipresence of mosquitoes?

I am not, however, going to lose my sanity –or my love of life– over these insects. (In the Philippines there are better ways to do that.) Yes, they are a great nuisance, and there hasn’t been a day when I did not question the meaning of their existence, when I counselled patience to myself and sprayed Baygon all over my room and wondered rhetorically what it would be like if only –oh, if only!– they did not bite.

But the reality is this: nature is not something I have control over. The macabre mosquito diet is not something I can change (or will try to), and the temperate, tropical climate is not something I can reconfigure (besides, it’s lovely enough as it is).

The only power I have is in accepting that mosquitoes here are a way of life, just as much as the traffic and the dirty politics are. They fly, bite, suck, frolic with us in bed, and serve as faithful reminders that nothing –no place, no creature, no being– comes without imperfections. Especially not me.