I want to thank the late Jerry McCampbell, my high school physics teacher, who taught me about the theory of relativity during my junior year.  I always feel somewhat bad, because I love to bastardize the concept of relativity, applying it to experiences in life instead of just the speed of light.  But since my 16 year old mind grasped the concept, I’ve found it to work in many places, especially while traveling and trying to understand these new lands.

For Filipino cockroaches, relativity helps ease my anxiety and my screechish scittish reactions.  On our first night in the Cordillera, two cockroaches adorned the porcelain thrown like gargoyles at Notre Dame. It took some courage, but I used a book mark to skurt them away.  And I surely screeched under my breath.

Were these a sign of an unclean place? Of filth? Of human habitation with earth’s most vile creatures?

On the third and fourth nights here in the highlands we went camping, and as we strolled on to the tent decks for our evening slumber we found the platforms crawling with cockroaches.  Okay, so this wasn’t an Indiana Jones snake pit, but a solid pack of a half dozen slimy, flying, little nasties lurked about the entrance of our mesh sleeping quarters.

And that’s when I realized it: cockroaches are a relative creature.  Where I grew up, cockroaches were an anomaly, appearing at times of unkept homes on T.V. and on rotting trash in alleyways. A cockroach, and its many friends here, is simply just a way of life, they’re just another insect like a beetle or a mosquito or a fruit fly.  Roaches are not a sign of the unclean or filth, they just happen to thrive in these wet, jungle environments.

Coexistence is a must.

Now try explaining this to Lindsay after reading her blog on this coexisting creature: http://www.travelpod.com/members/lgmcnicholas