Lessons learned on killing a tarantula

If you try to kill a tarantula with your flip-flop, make sure you’re wearing closed toe shoes.

At six a.m. a few days ago, just awaken Alanna opened the door to what first looked to us like a massive hairball. I searched my foggy morning brain to recall if I had seen anyone having a hairdo in the courtyard the day before – a pretty common sight - when one of the hairball’s legs moved.

My reaction was surprisingly rational, for someone who still screams high-pitch at the sight of an eight-legged bug in the shower: I wondered how come it was only the first time in nine months I had ever seen a big spider or a dangerous bug for that matter.

As I was searching for a solution (the flip-flop) I remembered my last evening in Canada, right before taking the plane for Burkina…

It was early August 2007. I had a pretty good idea what Africa looked like, as I had watched TV, read the papers and lookup up the internet: Africa was an inhospitable, dangerous bug-ridden, arid and dusty landscape overcrowded with hungry kids in ragged clothing. I was lying in my bed, literally paralyzed with fear, imagining the malaria loaded swarms of mosquitoes that I knew would attack me the very next day, the instant I would get off the plane. I could not even begin to imagine how many spiders, scorpions, snakes and other lovely creatures I would have to fight over the course of a year. I did not feel ready. I felt terrified, yet too proud to mention it.

That fear did not leave me until a few weeks in Burkina and it did gradually. So much so that, had it not been for that spider, I would have forgotten my preconception of Africa. As I was lifting the flip flop up in the air, focused on the motionless yet intimidating creature I realized that whatever I had thought I knew about Africa had been wrong. The hopelessness and danger picture I had built could not be further from the truth.

As I quickly slammed down the flip-flop on the spider, crude fear made my hand miss half of it. I jumped back. I had crushed its back legs and part of the body I think. The spider sprung on its back legs, showing its face to me, waving its front arms at me. I could see the two pronged teeth under its mustache aggressively trying to bite; its mouth was gasping open and closing in a trance. I was frozen. That’s when I realized I wasn’t wearing anything but a cloth – traditionally a women’s clothing – and that our whole host family was watching me. Despite the ridicule, it gave me ego-fueled courage to hit again twice, making the incident history and a big stain on the concrete floor.

Killing a big spider revealed surprisingly easy for someone with a visceral fear of that species. Yet it served me a good lesson: there is a big responsibility in being people’s window into a different world. I could have told a breath taking story (re-read paragraph two and six alone, you’ll see…) about the killing of a spider. You would have thought there are spiders everywhere in Africa and would have built the same fear I left with. You would have never considered coming here on holidays. By watching the news, you probably think Africa is hopeless. You would never consider investing in it. Yet this is definitely not what I have seen either.