Oh Critters....

Animals in Honduras are a little different from those in the United States—in fact, I’ve never had an experience at home that would make me scream to the high Heavens and make me wish that I never had to experience the close, proximity of animals ever again. But, in the space of two days, I had two encounters with horrendous creatures that almost brought me to tears, made me scream and shriek like a little girl, and made me realize just how important my personal bubble is when it comes to yucky creatures.

Let’s begin with a Thursday night in the park. Amy and I had decided to go watch a little futbolito (a 5 on 5 game of soccer played on a b-ball court with a small ball). Seated in the front row with Chiki, one of our friends here, we finished watching the first game and then were distracted by crowds of kids gathering in the corner beside us. Chiki explained to us that the other team about to play were the Possums and that in this corner were two starving, ugly possums. They were painted with blue and white stripes like the jerseys of their team and were on leashes like dogs. At the mere sight of them, I felt my stomach turn and shuddered. With them situated a couple of feet away, I was managing—but then the two owners decided it would be fun to literally either drag or swing them beside the crowd. Every time they pulled this stunt, Amy and I both screamed and freaked out. Noticing our fear, the two owners thought it would be especially funny to come over. They waited until the first goal and then before I knew it, this ugly, disgusting possum was being waved right in front us. I screamed and huddled as closely to Amy as I could. With my head shoved behind Amy, screaming as loud as I could, and heart beating out of control, I felt the horrendous creature on my back. It was at that point where I think I almost peed my pants. Side note: For those of you who don’t know this strange fact about me, I hate ferrets with a serious passion and the similarities between possums and ferrets are way too many. I didn’t want to swat at it and get bitten, but obviously I didn’t want it on my back. Thank God, at this point Chiki stood up to come to our defense and the awful critter left my back. Let’s just say it took a while for me to calm down. I wanted to leave but that would have meant that they would have won. And so when the next goal came quickly after, Chiki understood the severity of the matter and I huddled behind him as he stood up and told the guy to back up. Chiki is only about my height but they listened to him. After the second encounter, a little boy sitting behind me told me I could sit beside him and his dad told me they didn’t bite. Further away, I was safe from the possums and when the next goal came, an orange fight made our perfect exit.

A struggled night of sleep trying not to think about possums led to a groggy morning of school and then mopping. With an interruption from one of my Catechism students and host sister, Nohelia and I started chatting and then I realized I needed my copy of curriculum for next week. As I searched for the piece of paper, a pretty large brown spider was uncovered and I actually wasn’t too taken back. Spiders seemed like nothing compared to the possums. So I went to swat it off my bed and as I hit it, about a billion little spiders erupted from the momma spider. Billion might be a slight exaggeration, but I shouted out many choice exclamations as I saw the bottom end of my blanket scattered with miniature spiders. The big one would have been fine, but the idea of tiny spiders crawling on the blanket that I sleep with gave me the eeby jeebys. With as much force, I grabbed my blanket and went storming to the back yard cursing the country and looking for a big tub to drown all the little eight legged creatures that had any idea of making a home in my blanket. I then proceeded to spray Raid around every corner of my bed frame and pray to God that no more spiders would get near my bed.

Yuck, yuck, yuck