Bat Girl

The flight from Atlanta to Nicaragua was much shorter than I expected.  I must have fallen asleep.  The jolt of the landing gear hitting the runway knocked me back into consciousness.  I sat up, excited, nervous, terrified, proud.  My previous trips to Central America had all been arranged by the college, all I had to do was show up.  This was different: I had done this all on my own.  I gathered my belongings, retrieved my checked bag, and went outside into the tropical evening to find my guide.  I hoped she would recognize me, and I her.  We had met thrice before, but the street outside the Managua International Airport was dark and chaotic, so loud, and so many insects and smells and yelling people.  I quickly found her and we proceeded to the hotel.

            “Is that a Townsend’s?”  I heard a strong southern accent as soon as I walked into the lobby.  “What?” I asked, taken aback.  “Your tattoo.  Townsend’s big-eared, right?”  A tall man with tattoos, scruffy facial hair, and glasses was the speaker.  “Corynorhinus townsendii,” he said in his slow southern drawl.  I smiled.  I had been extremely nervous about meeting the other people in the group.  They all knew each other, all attended the same university, and I was the odd one out.  During four years at college, I had never met another bat person, yet here they were.  Six of them!  I had found my people.  I breathed a sigh of relief, but I still did not feel totally at ease.

            The first day of the trip was fairly uneventful: traveling to the field station (bus, ferry, a smaller bus on unpaved roads), getting settled in and acquainted with each other.  On the second night, it was time for the part I was most excited about: catching bats!  After an exhausting two mile hike in the stifling tropical humidity, we set up three mist nets and had a brief training session.  I was to work at net “A” with the tall, scruffy, tattooed gentleman who had identified my tattoo.  Our first bat of the evening flew into the net just after dark; my partner removed it and placed it in a small fabric bag.  We waited a few moments, and then began the short hike back to the processing station.

            In order to return to the station, we had to cross over a small ravine.  One side was quite steep and covered in dense, thorny brambles.  My partner grabbed my left hand and I stepped about halfway up the bank.  Suddenly, the earth crumbled away beneath my foot and I fell, hard, all the way down.  The worst pain I had ever felt in my life, along with a disgusting popping sound, erupted from my left shoulder.  When he dropped my hand, my arm fell down, limp, lifeless, like a piece of meat.  I could not move it.  My brain sent signals, but received no response.  After a couple moments, I could not feel it either.  With my right arm I pushed myself up, brushed the dirt off my legs, pulled the two-inch-long thorns out of my thighs, and grabbed his hand again.  This time I made it up the bank, covered in dirt and blood.

            Several weeks, many doctor appointments, x-rays, an arthrogram, and an MRI later, I found out that I had dislocated my shoulder and while I was in shock had popped it back into its socket, bruising the end of my humerus and pulling ligaments in the process.  I never let on to my bat people, not even the professor, how badly I was hurt or how much pain I was in.  I paid a lot for that trip (all of my financial aid refund and then some), and went through a lot of trouble to get myself to Nicaragua (including three expensive rabies vaccines and the logistical nightmare of getting from rural western Maryland to Reagan National), and I was not going to let a totally useless left arm stand in my way of making the most of the experience.  I could not lift or carry anything.  I could not put any weight on it.  I could not even wash my hair properly.  I had trouble sleeping.  I was in constant pain, with only extra-strength acetaminophen for comfort.  As Clark W. Griswold says, “Nothing worthwhile is easy.”  Yet all the while, I smiled, laughed, studied, and worked as hard as anyone.  I soaked up as much knowledge as I could.  I wanted to learn everything.  Every night I helped set up the nets to the best of my ability.  I also recorded data and after a couple nights began to process the bats.

I had touched bats before, but I had never been able to hold them.  This time I had rabies inoculations and thick leather gloves, so I was ready.  I knew from experience that they were the softest creatures I had ever felt, but I was not prepared for the emotional reaction to actually holding one in my hands.  Holding a bat is a delicate balancing act.  You have to be firm enough to prevent escape, and gentle enough to prevent suffocating or crushing them.  I discovered that I am a natural.  I cradled each bat in my fingers, with my thumb under its jaw, allowing it to chew on the end of my glove.  In this position they become more or less docile, and you can measure and manipulate their wings and bodies.  It also helps calm them if you whisper in their ear.  I felt like I was the Mother Bat and they were all my babies, so I had to be gentle and loving and protect them.  It filled my heart with warmth and a sense of purpose I had never felt before.

Over the course of the trip, my bat people were incredible sources of support and inspiration.  I felt like we had always been friends, though separated by time, geography, and circumstance.  As the Great Gonzo says, “There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.”  One evening, after partaking in the local rum, I collapsed in the bathroom.  One of the boys found me and rescued me off of the floor.  (I could not get up myself because of my shoulder, plus I was heavily intoxicated.)  I clung to him and started to cry.  The stress, exhaustion, pain, anxiety, all melted away.  He held me for a few moments, and then showed me a huge scar on his left shoulder, which had been rebuilt after he had been injured in Afghanistan.  He was lucky to be alive.  He showed me how his hands shook constantly due to nerve damage from the injury.  I showed him the scar on my back where a precancerous mole over an inch in diameter had been removed.  He noticed the scars on my arms, and then the ones on my wrists.  I, too, was lucky to be alive.  “PTSD?” he asked.  I nodded.  He embraced me again, for much longer this time.  He asked me why, what happened.  I told him the awful dirty secret.  He hugged me tighter and said, “The important thing is that you survived, that you’re here now, and that alone makes the world a better place.”

The trip ended with more traveling (bus, ferry, bus, taxi), a fire ant attack, a creepy jewelry vendor, Italian food, accordion serenades, and emotional goodbyes.  I had known my bat people for less than two weeks, but they will be in my heart forever.  In that short time, I learned so much from them, not just how to capture, handle, and identify bats, but how to accept myself for exactly who I am and never back down from anything.  Hopefully they learned something from me as well, maybe how to laugh at themselves no matter what happens, or how to do whatever it takes to reach their dreams and be happy.  According to Max Fischer, the secret is to “find what you love to do and do it for the rest of your life.”  For me, it is working with bats.