Chariot Spiders Anyone?

Off to Ghana in less than a week! (I’m pretty excited…) First a little recap on the last two weeks in the bush: Finished planting all our stuff- millet, beans, ground nuts; started the next process, which they call ‘noma’, basically tilling the entire field by hand... You can probably guess I didn’t help out too much with this part. After about one row, I was like, whew, well guys, good work, the sun’s out, I gotta go home… That one row was more than they expected me to do in the first place, so I think it was ok .. Had my first women’s group meeting on our Grain Bank project (I’ll talk about it more when my proposal gets on line to start the funding) but I’m really excited and I think these women are going to do an excellent job- they
So I’m pretty sure I mentioned that I got a cat about a month ago; so there’s a sad story now about that… The day I got back into the bush Musuru (that’s his name.. it’s just the Hausa word for ‘male cat’, but it sounded cool ) was perfectly healthy and really cute and excited to see me, probably because I’m the only one in the concession that doesn’t terrorize him, but anyway. So, that night we had a huge storm (irrelevant…sorry) and the next morning I couldn’t find him anywhere. Then I heard these little whimpers coming from underneath my cika-bed (millet-stock mat propped up on mud bricks) so I look under it and there he his, laying there whimpering. So, he can’t get up or anything, and to be honest, the moment I saw him I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to make it. So for about three hours I just had to kinda sit and wait, not being able to do anything for him- I tried to keep him hydrated, but by the end he was having muscle spasms and couldn’t breathe. I was so frustrated that I didn’t know what it was or what to do about it- but later on that day I found a dead scorpion that was in a couple chewed pieces. So my theory is that sometime during the big storm he either went in the house or under some dark corner to escape the rain and got stung and then tried to eat it, or, tried to eat it and then got stung, and, because he’s still really little, it killed him. It was sad. Oh, and possibly the worst part is the Nigerien perception of pets- my women’s group leader came in during those three hours and just looked at him and was like, ‘eww, don’t put that thing on the mat, its dying… you can just get a new one… lets go to the fields!’. Most of my neighbors were kinda like, oh its no big deal, you can just get a new one. Frustrating. Proudly I can say I kept my cool and didn’t cry… in front of them.
Sorry, but one more not-so-up-beat story: So that same night, I was going through the routine, getting ready for bed- it’s about 8:30 and it’s dark outside, so I have my headlamp on. I take a step out of my house and I see a large spider-like figure shoot across the ground at high speed… TWO of them. Oh- and they’re about as big as the palm of my hand. My cat just having been stung and killed by a creature, I freak out a bit and run back inside cowering.. They’re Chariot spiders, and they run around at top speed and they have these huge arms. They’re totally harmless, but the worse part about them is if they see light they kinda go crazy and charge it; so for about an hour and a half every time I got the courage to leave my house and set my bed and bug-net up, they would come flying out at me and ‘chase’ me back into the house. ( I finally put on some hiking boots, a rain coat, and gloves and set my bed up in several short increments) Needless to say it wasn’t one of my favorite days in Niger (I watched “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” on my Ipod, it helped the situation) So the next morning I tell one of the men in my family concession that there is a large chariot spider in my concession and that he needed to kill it… Actually, the exact translation was, ‘there is a too-big spider in my shade hanger, you need to give it death”… Anyway. He got the point, I went to market, came back and he was like, uh, Balkissa, I looked everywhere, I couldn’t find the chariot-spider.. So then I felt like the girl with a monster under the bed (literally) and was like, no! I SAW it. Well, a few days went by with no sign of them, and it wasn’t until the past couple of days that I saw them again. Don’t worry- the initial fear of the things kinda left, now when I see one, I just jump about a foot, turn off the light and leap into bed (which I have learned to set up BEFORE it gets dark). Ok. Moving on.
We're heading to Niamey for a few days before heading down to Ghana, so I'll try to take advantage of the fast 'city' internet and put up some pictures!