Anyone who knows me knows I’m not exactly a creepy-crawler type of girl. I’m the one who makes my friends kill a daddy longlegs because I’m too scared, Of course I knew that at some point during my two year service in Africa I would have too face my fear head on. Last night I faced it not once, but twice!

Let me set the scene. I am going about my business reading my book by flashlight as I normally do once dusk descends. All of a sudden my flashlight casts a shadow on the mud wall of my hut–a huge spidt’s er hanging out on the other side of my mosquito net. It isn’t exactly the meaty tarantula-type, but it’s definitely hairy enough and big enough to cause a new PCV to freak out a little.

While silently thanking God/Allah for the great, wonderful invention of the mosquito net to protect me from all of the night beasties, I contemplate what to do. Live and let live? Or pursue the spider to take out my rage? I’m considering the kind, one-with-nature approach of letting the spider live–after all, it’s not like he’s encroaching on my space. Then he crosses the line, scuttling across the mosquito net, ever closer to where it meets my bed frame. Soon he’s practically staring me in the face from the other side of the net.

Oh hell no! I dash out from the other side of my mosquito net and grab my nearest sandal (Thanks, Mom, for the Tevas. Really useful!) Poised for attack, I look around and have a panicked moment when I realize I don’t know where the spider went–the worst outcome possible. He could be in my sheets right now, for all I know. I frantically move the beam of my flashlight around but can’t see anything. Finally, after a moment, the dreadful creature emerges, just barely, from the bottom of my bed frame.

I take a moment to stare it down with my flashlight, just so that it knows its life will soon be over.  Then, one swift blow from my blue Tevas and my enemy has been conquered.

Feeling extremely self-satisfied, I’m ready to crawl back into bed and finish my book, but alas, nature has other plans. Near where my thatch roof meets my walls I spot the ugly, albeit relatively benign, African cockroach. As gross as these things are in the States, they are worse here, with big shiny backs, virtually indestructible (Eww). Usually they are confined to my nyegen in the early morning hours, but somehow this stray one found its way into my house. This one looks like it might have been injured–it is moving very slowly rather than dashing up my wall. After a moment he falls off the wall and limps towards the safety of a dark place, like under my bed.

I contemplate whether to try and get him with my Teva, but I decide this could be a rather messy affair that might not actually do away with it–these roaches are hearty and strong, after all. And I’m not sure what would be more demoralizing: knowing it is still crawling around somewhere I don’t know, or half-killing it and then having to finish the job and clean up afterwards.

In the time it takes to consider all this, though, my prey has dashed out of my sight. I search around, shining my flashlight into all the crevices I can think of, but to no avail. Resigned to defeat, I tuck my mosquito net in extra tightly after sliding gingerly into bed, suddenly hyperaware of all the inevitable scuttling and rustling noises I tend to hear in my hut at night.

And then, I write this story down, because I’m a new PCV with WAY too much time on my hands to think about things like bugs.