The Case of the Smelly Pandan

Two friends messaged me to post another blog. The first one sent the message on facebook. The other one sent it through my nerves. That friend lives between my ears. 

No matter how I try, I seem to find myself starting blogs and losing interest somewhere in the middle. In the end, I don't get any posts done. Don't worry though, it's a different case for eval reports and work related stuff. I also hit the deadlines with church related stuff.

Anyway, these days are really rock. My mind is currently in search for answers. You see, around our house, you could see leaves that look like this:
That's Pandanus or in local terms, pandan. Wikipedia says that it's a genus of monocots with about 600 species. Seriously I didn't know they were this many. The leaves are usually used in weaving mats and the like. Most of us also use pandan to give rice an aroma. Yep, it's that smelly. And of course, who wouldn't know of the all too common buco pandan? It's a delicacy!

So why did we put it around the house? Simple. Someone told us that pandan repels insects especially cockroach. No it doesn't kill roaches, my brother tried hitting the roaches with those leaves and they just scurried away. I didn't know which is really ineffective either the pandan or my brother. I'm betting everything on the latter.

Anyway, so someone did tell us to put pandan in every corner of the house that became home to squatter roaches.
I also placed some in our cabinet where we hang our pants.
Even on my bookshelves.

I was eager to see what would happen after I placed it there. I imagined some aura from the leaves would ward off the cockroaches that seemed to appear at night when our neighbors below us started spraying.

The chance for the pandan to show it's stuff happened last night. Our neighbor sprayed their insecticide in the middle of the night. Two things happened. First, the pandan was able to hold back the roaches from entering our cabinets and corners. Second, since the roaches had nowhere else to go, they went to the sleeping person on the bed which was none other than me!

Conclusion? I had one hell of a night swatting those roaches away. Killed a lot. I learned that pandan works and that my neighbor needed scolding for spraying insecticide in the middle of the night.