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The amazing biodiversity of the Greater Chicago area did not, in hindsight, adequately prepare me for the wonders of nature I was to encounter once I arrived in the Philippines. There were some things, of course, that were familiar to me. The rats and stray cats looked just like the ones back home and there were a handful of pigeons in downtown Manila, so I didn't feel as though I'd landed on an alien planet. Philippine cockroaches are a little bigger, more the size of, say, small dogs, than the squirrel-sized ones I was used to, but that just made my new home seem exotic and interesting. Within a few days of my arrival, I had gotten comfortable with the ecosystem and could concentrate on more important things like shopping for decorative beadwork and counterfeit DVDs.

After a few months in the Manila area, my wife and I moved to the mountainous northern part of the country, near the city of Baguio. We found a nice house in a quiet hillside subdivision nestled among the pine forests outside the city, a peaceful and cool change of pace from the hectic life of sweltering Manila. It seemed ideal, but little did we know we were just beginning a terrifying battle with nature.

The ordeal began the very first night we were in our new house. Being a native of a much cooler climate than the Philippines, I was reveling in the mountain air after having suffered in the tropical oppression of the lowlands for a few months, and opened every window in the house to the cool breeze. Bad idea. Within minutes, we were beset by a cloud of huge black mosquitoes. They were exceedingly bold and vicious little bastards, too, whose tactic was to seize their victims and hang on until reinforcements could arrive. With much flailing and yelling we managed to hold them back just long enough to retreat to the safety of the bedroom, where we spent the next hour or so hunting down and swatting the couple dozen or so that had infiltrated our defenses as their comrades angrily tried to force their way into the room. It sounded like someone was out in the hall throwing handfuls of sand at the door. Finally safe, we huddled in fear under the blankets until the sun came up and the mosquitoes withdrew.

I knew they would be back, so as soon as I could I ventured out to talk to some of the local people to see what sort of weapons they used against the mosquitoes. I assumed there must be some defense against them; after all, most of the local residents did not appear to be bloodless zombies, so they

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