Never Alone

Although I’m the one who pays the rent on my house, I am never truly alone here. I have several tiny housemates who keep me company. One has taken up residence in my office, and I’ve named him (her?) “Punkin”. Actually, I call all of them Punkin or Baby. They are geckos (related to the one in the Geico commercials). Most of them are about four inches long, but one time I saw a really tiny one that wasn’t more than two inches from nose to tail.

The one in my office usually hangs out in the window that’s behind my computer, and sometimes he peeks out from behind the curtain and skitters down the wall, startling me when I see him out of the corner of my eye while I’m working. Geckos are very shy and harmless and they earn their keep by eating bugs, so they are welcome residents. However, they are not silent – they “chirp” fairly loudly for their small size, usually in the evening and usually seven or eight times in a row.

Every place I’ve lived in Boquete has had geckos in the house. At the first place, I kept hearing what I thought was a strange bird every evening, until one day I saw a gecko run across the wall and duck behind a picture, then heard the chirping sound. I thought the “bird” sounded like it was inside the house, and had to laugh when I discovered what it was! I love listening to them, though – it makes me smile every time I hear them.

Punkin apparently gets a little chilly occasionally – now that it’s a bit cooler during the rainy season, almost every day I see him resting on top of the voltage regulator (located next to my office chair), which throws off a little heat. He’ll hang out there for hours at a time, not moving even when I get up to go to the other room.

BTW, voltage regulators are useful to protect electronic devices from power surges and brownouts. I had never heard of such things in the US, but the electricity in Panama is notoriously prone to high and low voltage variations which shorten the life of appliances and computers, so I use them throughout the house. Apparently they’re also useful as gecko warmers!