Catch Up and the Spider Incident

So I apologize to those of you who have been checking for a new post. the last two weeks we were super busy with placement reports and midterm evaluations and then we took off for the weekend so lots to write about!

Quick catch up. Friday (Ap 15) we participated in a march downtown to protest child abuse. Although I ended up carrying the small child I was with to prevent him from the abuse of marching all around smoking hot downtown, it was for a good cause. The local school children took up the chant “ Love us, kiss us, don’t abuse us” A pretty good message!

On the weekend we found our way to darkview falls, a two tiered waterfall that was quite impressive.  You have to cross a precarious looking bamboo bridge to get to the actual falls and some of the bamboo looked like it had seen better days! When you got across you were at the first waterfall then you had to cross the river and climb a very steep set of stairs to the second falls. When it wasn’t swamped by tourists off the cruise ship it was a beautiful sight. We were quite surprised to find though that in the river falling down on us were mini lobsters????? Any biology friends want to take a stab at that one?? I think the best part of the day though was that we managed to do the whole trip (bus fare and park entry) for only 12 EC (~5$ canadian) versus the 75$ american the tour company charged all those cruise tourists!

Tuesday night (Ap. 19) we had some excitement we now refer to as the spider incident. Silan and I were up late writing seating evaluations for some of the children at the center (for my non OT readers it’s a  report covering children who require a wheelchair discussing how they are able to sit, any physical deformities effecting it and all sorts of details about their wheelchairs and what they need or have). I finally finished mine at 1:30 and opened the door from our bedroom into the dark living rom where our supervisor (Christina) was sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Illuminated by the light coming from the bedroom I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen (we are talking the size of a hockey puck!!!!!!!!) scurry towards Christina’s bag and into the darkness.

I grabbed a shoe but could not see it anymore… panic set in. I grabbed my flashlight and Silan but we could not see the spider. (At this point Im getting pretty worked up!)  After creeping around trying to shine our light around Christinas bag and much deliberation over whether or not to wake her (at one point we discussed the idea of barricading ourselves in the bedroom, every man for themselves…) we decided we had to wake her incase she woke up to us creeping. We convinced her to get out of bed, and began the hunt. Finally we moved her mattress and found the HUGE spider hiding between the mattress and the wall right by where her head had lain.

I smashed it with a shoe and it did not flinch but instead it scurried up the wall. We had to resort to an all out attack using a firm broom to smash it off the wall from a distance and then a thorough shoe smashing. After all this I turned around and realized Silan and Christina had left me to fight the battle and had retreated to the other side of the room. Moments later while we were trying to calm down, we saw it move its leg again and once more the smashing ensued. 6 hours later justice was served when we saw a gecko carry off the spider remains for breakfast... I think I need to invite more geckos into the house!

What a great way to start my bday, a big long report and then an even bigger spider!!!!  I did enjoy my birthday, last wed though. It was adorable to see our non-verbal children singing or playing instrumental versions of happy birthday for me as the staff provided more vocals. Down here there is more then one verse to the song. There is the standard happy birthday to you verse. Then to the same tune and pattern,  the” may god bless your soul” verse. And they wrap it up with the “may you live to see more” verse which after the spider incident I felt was a completely warranted birthday wish.