snakes, spiders and kittens

Hey all. So it's been exactly 4 weeks since swearing in, and roughly 4 weeks at site except for my little trip to Windhoek and for some reason this week I just hit a wall. I didn't come to town last weekend. I ended up going to Mubiza on friday night to stay with Sarah. We made some yummy pasta on Griffin's stove and watched the Office, and it would have been an awesome night except that Griffin's hut is some sort of sack spider den. Sack spiders are huge, gross, super fast, poisonous spiders and according to Sarah's host dad if you get bit by one your arm will turn back and you'll eventually die. Great. Another creature in the bush that wants to kill us. Luckily Griffin's cat, Romanus, was pretty good at killing and eating the spiders but there were a few that managed to escape Romanus which resulted in Sarah and me jumping from Griffin's bed to the cot in his sitting room shrieking. And I'm not afraid of spiders. I have about 30 wall spiders chilling in my hut right now. But man, I'm telling you, those things are scary.

Oh, and to back it up a bit, last week I came home from school for tea break,which is when I eat breakfast with my family. I was sitting in my host mom's hut, finishing my bread and peanut butter (my favorite meal of the day, because it does not involve any variation of porridge), when my host mom called me outside. She put her arm around me and pointed to the thatch in my hut and said in the kind of voice you use when you have to tell someone something and you don't want them to freak out and vomit on you because what you have to say is terrifying, "Look over there." I looked up and sure enough sticking its head out of the thatch was a snake. Now, in America, I'm not afraid of snakes. They really don't bother me. I used to enjoy catching garter snakes and keeping them as pets when I was little. But in Caprivi snakes are a whole different story. Essentially villagers will tell you that every kind of snake is poisonous and going to kill you in 3 seconds flat. And that's what I've been hearing since I got to Namibia. So this has instilled a pretty intense fear of snakes, and particularly of snakes getting into my hut. Which the other volunteers told me is very rare and probably not going to happen. But there was a snake, just hanging out in the roof of my hut. My host mom ran and got two women who live in the huts next to mine and they came with long sticks and knocked it out of the roof, then one of the women beat it with the stick until it was dead. I have no idea what kind of snake it was. it was thin and green, and possibly a green mamba although those are actually pretty rare (black mambas, the way more dangerous kind, are more common). The day before a cobra tried to get into the grade 3 classroom and they killed it. So there we have it. Two snake sitings and a bombardment of sack spiders, all in the same week.

But fortunately the reason I was going to Mubiza in the first place, in addition to see Sarah, was to get my kitten! Griffin's spider killing cat had kittens a few weeks ago, so Griffin gave me one to keep snakes and spiders out of my house. And also just because kittens are darn cute. So now I have a little kitty to guard my house. She's black and white and her name is Yebo.

So aside from poisonous animals trying to kill me and cute little kittens I've just been going to school every day and trying to get to know the teachers and learners. I don't know, I think this week I just a hit a slump. It's been 3 months of living with host families and I'm definitely ready for some independence. I'm also way tired of the food and so ready to be able to cook for myself. But only 6 weeks until reconnect and then I get to move into my own hut! My mansion as my counterpart jokingly refers to it. But after living in a windowless 8 by 8 foot cave it will definitely feel like a mansion.

Anyway, I'll continue to keep you updated on snakes and spiders and what not!