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Published: September 10th 2011
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We have finally encountered some african wildlife. Well, sort of! Friday night, sleeping comfortably, woke up for some reason so decided to get a drink downstairs. It was about 1am. Turned the bed side light on. something makes me glance at the window curtains. AHHHHH. I was frozen. It was a giant spider of certainly killer status (atleast 2 feet long!...ok, maybe 2 inches). I stood in one place for what seemed like an hour (probably 30 secs) and was trying to muster up the courage to use Raissa's sneaker to kill it myself, or if I needed back-up. That vicious thing was giving me the evil eye. staring me down from 2 feet away. I could see it calculating our demise. Finally I woke Raissa up because that spider surely needed 2 people to get rid of it! :-) She was very gracious about that by the way. She was armed with 2 sneakers, me on the bed with another in case the 1st two weren't enough. (I also made us both put our sandals on in case it tried to attack our feet). Raissa and her bravery saved our lives. She masterfully smushed that spider in an instant. spider
legs everywhere, and then we flushed him. After that my bed moved about 3 feet away from the windows (Sorry Pam) and I was awake all night watching for more to come charging in the window while Raissa slept peacefully in her bed. I finally turned the light off around 4am and just woke up at 9. And we both had night mares about spiders after! I think my mistake was trying to GOOGLE the spider and figure out what kind it was. And of course, due to me being convinced it had to be the most deadly african spider ever, I googled "dangerous spiders in africa." and convinced myself it was most of them! In reality its probably a Rain Spider (that pictures still gives me chills) which is what Raissa believes. I on the other hand am convinced it was a Violin Spider (brown recluse in the states). I read a lot about them in the middle of the night. And what made me so sure is the one simple line " they are night hunters and seek out their prey at night." Seriously, that clinches the diagnosis for me! :-) ah well, needless to say I will
keep my bed in the middle of the room tonight, Raissa will sleep peacefully and secretly laugh at my terror last night, and the spiders will probably crawl all over me at night and I will have no idea! Thank you Raissa for being brave enough to save our lives last night from that deadly creature.
Oh, and i finally met the MONGOOSE!!! I walked downstairs in my post-spider stupor to make coffee this morning and noticed a squirrel outside the front yard. A squirrel in africa? (maybe they do really have them, but I didn't think so). and it was a long tailed one, with a cute little face. And then I realized. RIKKI TIKKI TAVI! It was the mongoose. He was the cutest thing ever! Apparently he hangs in our backyard but we haven't seen him yet. he went to hang out with the neighbors across the street, so maybe he'll come over later.
p.s. that is not the real spider, because it surely would have jumped and attacked if I turned away to get my camera. And that is just a generic mongoose because I am not smart enough to carry my camera with me on the way to get coffee!
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anonymous
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it is a house spider . :)