A lot comes to mind when I think of India and animals. First mental picture is driving through ridiculously over-crowded streets dodging chickens, goats, dogs, cows and water buffalo. Next would be the elephant-sized rodent that lived in our roof. And I couldn’t forget the invasion of ants. Christina and I battled the illusive invasion of ants for weeks. For some time there would be nothing. Not a single ant. Then one day one of us would innocently lift a box or bag and find a whole ant colony underneath. As we would run out of the house waving our arms and shouting for Ronald to come QUICK, the ants would all disappear, just in time for everyone to start thinking Americans really are as crazy as the rumors say. I even found a whole flock of them underneath the toilet seat once.
After spending two years in India this country really doesn’t stand out in my mind as being significant for animals. Never the less they have gotten the better of me a few times over the past six months.
First time was the night my very cool room mate Nubia didn’t come home until ten o’clock. I had decided to go to bed early for some much needed beauty sleep, turned off the light and crawled up into my bed with my trusty flashlight when I started to get that ‘I’m being watched’ feeling. You know the kind you get when you have nasty, beady little eyes watching you…Mom would understand…
Well I switched the flashlight back on and caught sight of a mammoth sized spider suspended over my bed. This thing had to be at least the size of a dinner plate…maybe bigger, say twenty, thirty inches across or so. One of the man-eating kind. After I had recovered my mental facilities, I vacated the bed at a shocking rate and started waiting for Nubia to get home.
And I waited and waited, mind you…I had gone to bed early…the whole time sitting on the little chair with my arms folded across my chest and with my eye on that gigantic spider. When all of a sudden the nasty little thing did an amazing scientific feat. I kid you not when I say that this spider that nearly spanned the entire surface area of the roof folded itself up tinny-tiny, itty-bitty and crawled under a beam in the roof, right above my bed…
Well that really did it. I was just getting ready to pack my belongings and head back to the good old USA, land of the free and home of large cans of spider repellant, when Nubia finally showed up and beat it to death for me.
After spending two years in India this country really doesn’t stand out in my mind as being significant for animals. Never the less they have gotten the better of me a few times over the past six months.
First time was the night my very cool room mate Nubia didn’t come home until ten o’clock. I had decided to go to bed early for some much needed beauty sleep, turned off the light and crawled up into my bed with my trusty flashlight when I started to get that ‘I’m being watched’ feeling. You know the kind you get when you have nasty, beady little eyes watching you…Mom would understand…
Well I switched the flashlight back on and caught sight of a mammoth sized spider suspended over my bed. This thing had to be at least the size of a dinner plate…maybe bigger, say twenty, thirty inches across or so. One of the man-eating kind. After I had recovered my mental facilities, I vacated the bed at a shocking rate and started waiting for Nubia to get home.
And I waited and waited, mind you…I had gone to bed early…the whole time sitting on the little chair with my arms folded across my chest and with my eye on that gigantic spider. When all of a sudden the nasty little thing did an amazing scientific feat. I kid you not when I say that this spider that nearly spanned the entire surface area of the roof folded itself up tinny-tiny, itty-bitty and crawled under a beam in the roof, right above my bed…
Well that really did it. I was just getting ready to pack my belongings and head back to the good old USA, land of the free and home of large cans of spider repellant, when Nubia finally showed up and beat it to death for me.
