Eventually, Frankie of Pleasure would give us a small space to build something.
The first days we slept upstairs in a small hut. Downstairs everything was damaged by termites.
Above the bed we had to fix a large plastic sheet. By morning that sheet was coming down, heavy with rat pee. Without a mosquito-net you couldn't sleep. At night it was the hunting ground of rat snakes. I woke up one night because I felt something behind my head. I grabbed a torch, turned around with difficulty, en was face to face with the open mouth of such a big snake. “Hey”, I said, “I'm not a rat!”
Our hut was in the middle of the woods. When I would brush my teeth outside, very often a mouse would jump on my thigh and then rush off. And then a snake would hit my thigh, and would then stand up super fast in front of me, angry that I had disturbed her hunt. “My apologies”, I said.
We would get a good understanding with the animals. And I would actually have more contact with nature and her creatures than with the Aurovilians, and we would protect each other. A young male cobra would come to live with us, man, that was such a beautiful snake! Such an exquisite sight with his hood fully opened. I liked to tease him and then he would stand like that in front of me.
When I was cooking, I had very often a snake next to me. Or our Micha's horse would nibble on my neck. Best massage ever.
