This has been a week of encounters with the local wildlife. Let's start off by saying that things are not just bigger and better in Texas. My first encounter happened while I was helping set up the new teaching supply store (which is almost all ready, they are planning on having the grand opening this upcoming Fri). My job of the moment was to take backpacks out of a box and hang them on the hooks. I looked in a box to see if there was anything else left to hang when I saw a stuffed spider at the bottom of the box. I thought that it was an odd size for a toy - it was the shape of the spider on a spider ring but I could tell it was not that and I could see that it was not really big enough to cuddle. I glanced around the store really fast to see where we were displaying this toy and then looked back into the box to grab it. That's when I realized that it had moved and that it was not in fact a toy but a huge 6" (at least!) spider -- the living breathing kind that you see in horror films. I jumped and tossed the box. I believe there was probably some yelling in there too so of course everyone wanted to know what I had just seen. I told them and of course everyone wanted to see what I had just seen. I took them to the box, looked in to point out the spider - AND COULDN'T SEE IT ANYMORE!! At that point we all jumped back and searched frantically for the spider. Luckily we spotted it almost right away and hurried the box out of the store. There were some workmen nearby and they very kindly (with not too many comments about the scared palagi (white lady)) took the box off somewhere.
That evening I talked Karen into going swimming at the local beach. Once we were in the water and happily bobbing about Karen tells me about the time a shark was beached on that very same beach. They cut the shark open and found a ton of babies inside of her almost ready to be born. Karen took one home to her kids so they could see it and then let it live in her bathtub for a short while. She also told of how they stuck a pencil inside the tub near the sharks mouth and how the shark bit it in half. Thanks Karen - now it is dark out and it is hard to see whatever it is that just wrapped itself around your leg. Ah! That swimming didn't last long!!
Sometime later in the week we came back to the apt unexpectedly to grab some stuff on our way from one meeting to the next. I walked in the bedroom and saw something skitter across the floor out of the corner of my eye but I didn't think much of it because the night before I had seen a giant cockroach near my stuff (which yes, I had freaked out about but we didn't manage to kill it before it hid somewhere and I didn't think I was going to be able to smash it this time either) so I just thought it was that and kept going. The light switch is all the way across the room so I got almost all the way there when I realized that it was not a roach, it was a rat!! I jumped and yes, once again there was probably yelling. Karen came running in, the rat went running out. No clue where it went to ground so now there are several friends that I know of who live in the darkness that I hope not to encounter again.
I also have some daddy longleg type spiders that share my shower with me as well as ants everywhere I look. I think that it will be impossible for me to get lonely here - there will always be millions of friends ready to share my space with me! I just would like them to not be so unnaturally sized!!!