Sardines, sheds, spiders...OH MY!

With any reference to my previous blog, it may seem as if I am nothing more than a bundle of fears when I tell you that I hate spiders, but aside from heights, spiders are my weakness. In fact, I may or may not have had a few friends look up how numerous spiders were in Rwanda before I left. However, I knew that this was something I might have to deal with considering the vegetation and climate here. I thought to myself, “Well there may be a spider that wanders in or out of my apartment that needs to be killed. I will deal with that problem when it arises.” I didn’t know what size or with what frequency these spiders would come. This is something I’ve decided not to worry about. If a problem crawls my way, I will solve it. This is not a time for being a coward.
Thursday afternoon, Katie and Louise and I held a kids club for the missionary kids. We had a bible study that was encouraging. Then, we had a crafts time, during which we picked fresh rosemary, mint, and leaves from a lemon tree, and made sachets as part of the craft. The afternoon was really wonderful. When Caleb and Lydia joined us, we decided to play a game of sardines. It was Caleb’s turn to hide first. (For those of you that don’t know, Sardines is much like the inverse of Hide and Seek. One person hides, and the rest search. When the hider is found by a searcher, the searcher becomes a hider also…until all the searchers have joined company with the hider, and the last searcher comes upon the group.) We split up and were searching for Caleb. There is a very- let me repeat VERY- small shed in the back yard at the Kings. When I looked in, I saw Caleb standing, and Katie crouching in there. There wasn’t a door per say, but more so a rusty opening with a wheel in front. This was clearly for storage of things, not people. However, as a competitor in all but athletics, I found my way in and hunkered down on a dirty green children’s chair. Soon, the Schuman’s older daughter, Elizabeth, found her way in also and it became less and less possible for one to scurry out. This was a claustrophobic nightmare. Luckily, I am not claustrophobic. Katie whispered, “Caleb took this ‘sardines’ literally. We are squished together in a metal can! But it’s not so bad except for the spiders.” Hmmm….except for the spiders. Hmmm what a small exception. It was at this point that any sort of calm repute I’d built with my new friends and the children I’m teaching proved a façade. I started squealing and squirming and confessing how arachnophobia plagues me! It was maybe one of the most spastic moments of my life. There is a whole small group at home that understands the irony of this situation. Katie spent the rest of the time in the shed trying to back track or point out the animals in the yard to me, and I spent the rest of the time trying to be brave and keep focus on the great green world outside this shed. At one point, it occurred to me, “This is a Harry Potter nightmare!” Eventually, the last searcher found us and we got out. Only then did Katie tell me that had I looked a little closer I would have seen baby spiders crawling out of nests all around me, including the nest in the chair I was sitting in! It was terribly creepy, but I made it out in one piece without any little crawling companions on me. I’m not going to say that I didn’t suffer from continual scratching, a nervous twitch, and a watchful eye the rest of the evening.