Spiders

View from the house we stayed in outside the city.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about why I think I've never been afraid of spiders.  When I was a child, my dad would take a hand and move his fingers like a spider as a game.  The objective was for me to hit the spider.  I believe that's one of the reasons I've always had really fast reflexes by playing this game from the time I was a small child, until later in fencing when a friend said I was "fast like a freak." But in general, it taught me what to do if I saw a spider, and I was not afraid of them. Ironically I didn't feel the need to kill them either, because I was armed with a sense of preparation.  So they never really bothered me ... except once.

When I was in the Philippines in the Summer of 1996, my cousin and I stayed with my Uncle in Tagbilaran on the island of Bohol. While in the city, we had no hot water heater so showers were either cold or you ladled water to clean yourself and basically had a sponge bath.  Some rather extreme circumstances later, and a threat to kidnap my cousin and myself, and we were moved to a new location where we stayed, 2 girls alone in the jungle in this house.

The house like many in the Philippines was open to allow the tradewinds to blow through the structure and cool it. In the temperate climate, those winds did an excellent job keeping us cozy.  However, this also meant that it was open to the encroaching jungle as well.  In fact before we could stay there, they had to remove the dead pythons hanging from the rafters.  They would climb up to try to eat the eggs out of birds' nests and the birds would peck holes in the snakes' skulls, leaving their limp bodies as a ghastly decoration. We had not had any game growing up to deal with snakes, so they did scare me.

The one thing about this new location though is it had a hot water heater, and neither of us girls could wait to get a real shower.  It was glorious and steamy as I bathed in what felt like luxury and is commonplace here in the US. I remember washing when I saw a huge spider, bigger than my father's hand climb down the wall in front of me. It was brown and hairy, and nothing like I had ever seen.  As if it wasn't bad enough to be alone and naked in a shower with the most monstrous spider I'd ever scene, but it was just then that the island had a "brown out".  A brown out is when the electricity for the entire island goes out.  I was plunged into darkness, wet, naked, and alone with the spider.  This I was not prepared for in the least as I yelped and groped in the darkness for my towel and raced to get as much clothing and distance between myself and the spider.

Although that one summer had many stories that came from it, and some unsettling, it was an experience I won't forget. I wish that more young people had a chance to visit a third world country and realize the things they take for granted on a daily basis. Perhaps the next time you take a shower, you'll think of this story and be thankful for something as simple as hot water.