Encounters of the Third World: My 8 Legged Friends

Encounters of the Third World

Saturday, March 13, 2010

My 8 Legged Friends

I have reached a milestone in the evolution of me. Its the first I can actually point to since I've been here in Thailand. But now I can honestly say that I am no longer afraid of spiders! Amazing, I know! It was a long hard fought battle but in the end I can say I came out a winner, or a loser depending on your perspective. You see, Thai spiders are nothing like the spiders you will encounter anywhere else (well maybe in the amazon but thats beside the point). They come in many different shapes, sizes, colors, sounds and physical attributes. Some hiss, some click, some are the size of an ant, others the size of a softball, some jump, others run, and they are all everywhere. I swear these spiders have more powers then Spiderman, and I can honestly say that I have encountered most of them during my stay here.

I started out really scared of them. Bordering on arachnophobia (although back in my early Thailand days, anything thing that moved made me want to run down the street screaming and crying, flapping my arms in a disparate attempt of flight). But, no matter how hard I tried I could never escape them. They are quite literally everywhere here. They chase you, stalk you, repel onto your head, hiss at you from clothes in your wardrobe, live in your shoes and make homes and babies on your bike, but no matter how many you kill, there are 800 billion more ready to take that ones place. In the past year or so I have graduated from complete hysteria at seeing a spider, to caged fear, to watchful suspicion, to mild annoyance, and now total acceptance. I accept the fact that no matter what I do i will never be free of spiders. This was a revelation I discovered only yesterday. You see yesterday, as my morning alarm clock went off I opened my eyes to find that a spider had made a web in my left eye socket. How is this possible you might ask. Well yesterday night, as I peacefully slept, a spider proceeded to spin a thick, fully functioning web from my eyebrow, to the bridge of my nose, to my cheek and everywhere in between. Due to my relatively deep sleep and subsequent lack of movement, this spider chose to make its home on my person.

Now any normal person would freak out at this discovery so early in the morning. Even if it didn't actually happen to you, one can appreciate a certain horror in the situation. For example, when I told my mom this story she immediately screamed. And when I told my arachnophobic aunt this story... well you can imagine the tears, screams, hyperventilation and sobs that followed. Me on the other hand, with my highly evolved psyche, simply removed the spiderweb from my eye and continued to go about starting my day. It wasn't until I actually told this story to my family that I even realized that this was something worth freaking out about. In fact, my family is still freaked out that I never actually found the spider. Me, I just shrug my shoulders and keep it pushing. Because I have reached this stage of acceptance stage in evolution of me! So thank you Thailand... Thank you! I couldn't have done it without you.

Until next time...
PORSCHA

posted by Porscha @ 5:17 AM

1 Comments:

At March 14, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Unknown said…

Sister.....you didn't tell me this story. I'm sorry that happend to you but I'm glad that you can just shrug it off. Matter of fact, i'm MORE glad that I didn't see any spiders while was out there. And you should feel lucky that this didn't happen to you or me while I was visiting because I would have drugged you and forced you to come back to America with me.

I am in awe of you.

Love,
Sissy

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Name: Porscha
Home: Chai Nat, Thailand
About Me: The opinions of this blog are mine, and mine only. They do not reflect the opinions and/or views of the Peace Corps or the United States government.
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