Spiders

Many people here have English names, which makes things easier to understand for me, but I always wonder if I should pronounce the name with an African accent or not…the guy I work with the most here is named Repent. I feel like John the Baptist every time I call his name.

Today we had an orgy of spider destruction. It seems that a colony of spiders decided to settle here and occupy every possible corner and cranny of our roof. I mentioned the other day that I’d like to clean them, and Repent took up the challenge—not for me, but because some more foreign guests are coming through tonight. He bulldozed their homes with our horrible ratty broom, while I yelled behind him to squish all the ones escaping down the wall (I guess it’s probably not very John-the-Baptist to be screaming, “Repent! Repent! Kill! Kill! Kill!”).  We made great progress, and we will hopefully eradicate the problem after we buy some bug spray and make sure they never come back.

Of course, I keep having thoughts that maybe tonight these spiders will come back and attack me in my bed to avenge their fallen brothers. That image was not expunged when I picked up some crumpled paper from the floor to throw away and a spider jumped on my shirt. I screamed and jumped around—the normal reaction to having a spider crawling on your person, and caused great joy and hilarity amongst those watching. Naturally (or not, if you’re me), they were picking up the mangled remains of the spiders with their bare hands and throwing them out the door. I doubt I develop the mental strength to turn off the jump-and-scream switch in my brain to allow me to actually touch a spider on purpose. I do not have a phobia of spiders, I can look them in the eyes and smash them with a broom, but they are disgusting and creepy. And I still feel tingles on my legs or back like they are about to start to string up a new home on my body.

(Author’s Note: so far the spiders haven’t attacked, but I have killed a large wasp and cockroach with my new bug spray.)

I don't have any photos of us killing spiders, but here are Repent (red shirt), Yosef (blue hat), and myself (sunglasses), riding in the back of the truck to see what's wrong with one of our wells so we can fix it (which we did today).