One of the many things that is so unique about Jamaica and the Caribbean is that they are filled with a wide range of unusual critters. Jamaica has unusual animals and insects such as, peenie wallies, crickets, lizards and the legendary mongoose. Along with the usual array of fruit flies, spiders, cockroaches and ants; all these insects made for a grand time for me, and occasionally I would get a laugh or two from Granny as well.

Ever since I was a toddler, I had an odd fascination with insects. When I wasn't trying to be a one girl S.W.A.T. team for the mosquitoes, who often created ailments such as dengue fever, and irritating itchy whelps. I was either capturing lizards and their eggs for my infamous tea parties. On days when Granny's schedule was not hectic, I would invite her into my doll house for a "scrumptious meal" of mud pies, scrambled lizard eggs and roasted almonds. Granny was always a gracious guest because she often thought I had used products from the house to create my parties. However, when she sat down on the miniature chairs in the doll house, she suddenly realized that the meal was created from the land. Literally.

The look of astonishment on her face was worth planning the event. She would say, "This is a lovely meal you have planned here Ms. Mags, tell me, what is this strange colored thing here?"

I would reply, "Granny guess what? I found lizard eggs and scrambled them. Isn't that great?"

"Mmm...uh..very lovely sweetheart, what else did you make?"

She did her best to hide her repulsion by asking me if I had any excelsior crackers to help her digest the meal. I always told her that she didn't have to eat it, if she didn't want to. Granny was funny though, she somehow managed to pretend that she had eaten all the food and sometimes asked for seconds. This always puzzled me because I wanted to see her run shrieking from the house. But she always surprised me with her bravery and polite manner. Up until I was about nine years old it was one of my greatest mysteries. As I got wiser I found out, that Granny always hid my creations in her apron pocket. Granny knew that I put my heart and soul into organizing those parties, so she always did her best to be an obliging guest.

My pretend parties were usually a grand production, which required several days of planning. I had to carefully watch the lizards as they lay their eggs, then I would store the eggs until I was ready to prepare my meals. I would enlist the help of Granny to collect the almonds that had fallen from the tree. I would then leave them out in the sun to "roast".

Granny would ask me , "What you going to do with all these almonds? Make sure they are ripe before you eat them."

I never let on, that I was planning my tea party because I wanted to surprise her. After watching Granny coordinate her parties for so many years, I was sure that I could give a nice tea time also. For me, the fun was in the planning, it was the only time I could actually get away with digging up the yard to make my mud pies.

Occasionaly, I would find a treasure or two, at least in the mind of a child they looked like treasures. Now that I am older I know that they were just attractive items that had no value.

Granny would often call out from her kitchen window, "What you doing so long in the backyard? You better come inside now, or a mongoose is going to catch you." The legendary mongoose. I always thought it was a figment of my Granny's imagination. It wasn't until one day when I was looking for mud that I came across this unusual animal. It certainly sent me screaming into the arms of Gran. She comforted me by assuring me that there was nothing to be upset about. She would say, "Afterall, some people make mongoose soup with that animal."

After this event, I became fascinated with the mongoose, everywhere I went I would look for them.
They were cute in a strange way, their eyes were extremely bright. I guess you could say they resembled gremlins. People in Jamaica would often say someone favoured a mongoose whenever they looked extremely surprised.

It was always a delight to learn about new creatures while exposing Granny to my world of Entomology.
Granny was always a good sport, except there were times she would scold, "Get that custed thing out of here! Stop bringing those coroches into the house."

I later decided to explore my interests of bees. I would often pretend to cut the hedges around the house with my ruler. One day while discovery bees, I disturbed their nest. A very disgruntled bee stung me. I think all of Jamaica could hear me yell ouch!

Again, I ran to Granny seeking comfort, "Lord Jesus Granny, a wasp sting me!".

She would comment,"Nevermind sweetheart." Then rubbed some green bush on it, and I felt better. Granny often told me that the green bush helped to reduce the swelling.

Well, my love for the wonderful world of critters became more curtailed after this experience. You just never know what response you might get from them. There really is some creedence to the saying, "Let sleeping dogs lie." Although Granny always made a joke of my curiousity, she often told me, "Honey, you know if they bite you, you can always bite them back."

"Yeah, if I can catch them Granny."

Like Ali always said, "You gotta float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Nobody is quicker than me."

I'm not going to stick around to find out who is quicker. I know it's gotta be me!