Arachnophobia in Africa

Hello hello! Stolochi! That means “What’s up?” in Luganda. I am enjoying our low key day today. We have been going non-stop so the Darla and everyone decided we should rest in the morning and go to town just for the afternoon. It has been nice.

Yesterday was quite the adventure I must say. Mondays are like Saturday for the church leaders here. A day off. But for us interns it was a day trip into town for craft shopping and then to Entebbe for the Zoo. Fred, one of the church staff members is awesome. He makes friends with everyone everywhere and when we saw how expensive the zoo was for us all, Fred began to work his magic. Thirty minutes later, we all enter the zoo for basically the price of 1 ½ people…instead of 8. It was at that moment I taught Fred the slang term, “You da man!” Because he was and I wanted him to know that. 

We were hungry and Peter decided to walk us to the hostel that was actually inside the zoo property. It was interesting. He talked with the women in the kitchen and asked if they would cook us lunch. So they did but we went and toured half the zoo before coming back for rice, matoke, yams (I didn’t eat them), soup and g-nut sauce. The path to and from this hostel had a couple huge spider webs and that meant huge spiders. I was a little nervous the first time walking by, a little more the second time. But I made it. I am not a fan of spiders, especially when you are in the brush of Africa. 

After lunch Fred decided to take us the back way to back into the zoo. He asked us if we wanted to go through the forest trail. I love hiking and told him as long as there wasn’t anymore spiders I was down for that. So we were walking on this sketch small, small path in the middle of this African forest. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The trail was like Spider Town and it was ridiculous. Everywhere I looked I saw another huge web and then of course would spot the huge spider on it. I began to get tense. These webs might I add were not far off in the distance, or behind glass on display. Most zoo visitors probably never knew these paths existed to even walk these particular trails. It is not part of the zoo tour. This was crazy Fred’s jungle adventure. These spiders were just chilling in their webs probably waiting for their next prey to get in their web. We were having to watch our step and head not to bump into some  of them. The farther into the woods we went, the more spiders I saw. The more I looked up, the more I saw. Ya’ll I began to revert back to the mentality of a six year old. My breath was getting short, my heart was pounding, my eyes were watering. I couldn’t help but think the worst. You know, "These spiders were deadly poisonous, they were going to attack me, I was going to die…" you know the irrationally thinking the female mind goes through occasionally. And I was. It finally became too much. I was hyperventilating and began sort of, just a little bit crying. It ‘s not like me but I’m telling you, it was insane. I felt like I was on a Fear Factor TV show or something. So my Uganda friends, Aurora and Natasha walked me through the rest of the way. When it would get to an area more populated with spiders they would tell me to just keep looking down and guided me quickly through. I finally made it through and other than Heidi, in front of me and not scared at all might I add, the rest of the group didn’t have to experience this breakdown I had in the back of the line.

We began to see the rest of the zoo animals. It was great. The chimpanzees and zebras and huge snakes and rhino were all so much fun to see. On one path, monkeys were just all chilling in the middle of the road!! Not behind the fences or walls. Just in nature! Hannah and I were flipping out in excitement. We got up close and within arms reach of them. But we weren’t supposed to touch them since we didn’t know what kind of disease they potentially could be carrying. But I got great pictures with them! There was a mamma with her baby! It was adorable. Then the father joined for a family portrait and I really appreciated that! Fred took us off-roading again for one last adventure through deep brush to see the beach of lake Victoria. The grass was taller than me and the flying bugs at the zoo are in such dense clouds you have to squint and close your mouth unless you are ready for a snack. It was crazy. So we tried to run fast to keep up with survivor man Fred and I was laughing nervously hoping no snake was going to jump out. By the time I made it out I was laughing hard. I looked up and was ready to sigh in relief but instead found myself startled at the sight of this huge black feathered, pink necked ostrich that was looking right at me and was about five feet away. I screamed and threw myself against a fence where I almost fell to the ground. Fred didn’t warn us about the monster that was to greet us on the other side of the grass. Of course there was a very high fence between the creature and I but upon first coming onto it, the only thing I saw was Big Bird staring right at me. 

It was such an eventful day. We finally made it home after enjoying another night on the Boda bodas. Jamie made us all Thai food and it was great.  

 

Well, to make the long story short. The zoo was great, I didn’t get bit by a spider or attacked by an ostrich.  Just have the great scary memories to remember. For all of you that are emailing or FB messaging me, I am receiving them. I love you all and miss you. Feel free to keep writing. I would love to hear from you. Thanks!