DOOM is supposed to be a skittish woman's best friend... the end of all household insects' unfortunate lives. I've come to appreciate the smell of the noxious chemicals, a wonderful mix of organic compounds. However, as evidenced by its lack of killing power on the millipede (see previous entry), DOOM is not match for the true African trooper. So tonight, when the giant, black, awful tarantula showed up again, and DOOM failed, we needed to take more serious measures...
Kathleen and Liz came back from Zanzibar today and Dr. Manary took our visitors off to Liwonde National Game Park for the evening. So, I invited the girls over for a run (which was unsuccessful due to the extraordinarily heavy afternoon rains), and we sat around all day sharing stories of the week, of huge enrollment days, wading in mud, endless rain, but also white sand beaches, spice markets and new Swahili vocabulary words. After dinner, we talked about the coming week and Liz started to explain how one can find a safe, clean resthouse in Malawi. She referenced the need to check the door to be sure you can lock it from the inside, how you should inspect the bathroom, and just as she explained that the next thing to do is pull back the bedsheets to look for bedbugs...Kathleen screamed!
TARANTULA. Number 4 is it? Of course it sent me screaming on top of a chair, and Liz jumped on top of the couch. Kathleen, the only brave one, grabbed the DOOM and sprayed tons at the 5 inch creeper. No luck - it ran. I screamed a lot more. It must have sounded like a bunch of 9 year old girls at a sleep over party in here. I told Kathleen to grab a thin wood carving of a Massai warrior and poke at the spider, now hiding under the bookcase. With these assassination attempts clearly failing, I called in the reserves. The SecuriCore Guard watching our gate outside. I had no clue how to say spider in Chichewa, so I just told him to follow me to my house. When he saw what the commotion was about, he grabbed the dust pan, lurched in for the kill, and laughed all the way home.
Crisis resolved. My best guess - a baboon spider. Google it, it's awful.
-dkm
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2 comments:
Hi Danielle I left you a comment but it posted to your Dec 27 entry, my fault I am sure - check it out. Cathy Roberts
According to http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/november/baboon.htm,
a fairly aggressive kind of this spider lives in the Cape Region of South Africa. Great.
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