Close Encounters

Needless to say, living in a rural village in Nepal you come into much greater contact with bugs, spiders and animals than you do living in Chicago. So far all of my animal encounters have been friendly or at least benign. Many of the farmers have goats, chickens, and cows, including this stubborn bull.


In addition to the farm animals there are lots of dogs, plenty of different types of birds, at least one stray cat and a rat that I've seen twice now. The first time he ran up the steps and under the door into our kitchen. Fortunately all the food is kept in a metal trunk, so I think he must have scampered on out at some point since I haven't seen him in the kitchen since.
There are lots of colorful butterflies, dragonflies and grasshoppers, like this guy.



Most of my encounters with the bugs have been with the mosquitoes, to whom I make small daily blood donations.
Then there was this spider that I found in my room and was able to relocate to just outside my room (I'm hoping he nabs a few of those Mosquitos!)



And last but not least, the other morning there was my really close encounter with this other larger (and wickedly fast) spider about the size of my palm who I first came across one evening on some shelves in the hallway between our two treatment rooms. On my second encounter she happened into the bathroom as I was about to take a shower. Worse yet, she had me cornered. I tried to use the water hose to spray here out of the bathroom but the door was already closed and she was so fast that she was racing up the inside of the door, then darting across the tiled wall. I could barely keep the water directing her away from me and I was freaking out that she was going to crawl up my leg if I didn't do something to get her out the bathroom fast. After having no luck washing her underneath the door (she was too big to fit under the 3/4 inch opening), I finally decided I had to take drastic action and so I grabbed a rock that was on the window ledge, and well, let's just say I earned some negative karma that morning.

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