I’ve just had a battle with a spider as big as my hand. I won. But my friends, my victory brought me no pleasure. Too late I realised that this spider had come in peace, only looking for a morsel of food and a place to rest his weary (and bloody enormous) legs. But my fear and wariness of arachnids beyond a certain size had already driven me to begin exacting a cruel death upon it. And once I had started there was no turning back.
To make things worse I was too scared to do the humane thing and get close enough to hit it with something (I thought if I missed it might go on a killing rampage and make me scream like a little girl) so I double sprayed it with Raid instead, a can in each hand I was just like Lara Croft only with a more realistic figure. But unfortunately all my furious spraying did was make the spider crumple slightly in seemingly terrible agony and continue to cling desperately to the wall.
I watched it struggling to hold onto life for a few moments but eventually felt so guilty that I crept up behind it and smacked it with a newspaper (and then ran away shrieking until I finally convinced myself it was actually dead – somewhat less like Lara Croft at that moment). And this peaceful beast was thoughtful even in death, folding his legs up for me concertina-style to make my getting his broken corpse into the bin less frightening. I feel like a bad person...
School was fun today. I chose the topic of Halloween and taught the kids a rhyme about Trick or Treating and some words like pumpkin, skeleton and haunted house (which they found particularly difficult to say – my favourite variations included ‘warrntey wowce’ and ‘hoe tail hasse’). They seemed to enjoy it though which made me feel I was doing a good job, despite the fact that one of the teachers told me I had terrible handwriting and she was surprised the children could understand anything I wrote. (I’d been avoiding using cursive script because I know the French have a particular style which makes everyone’s handwriting uniform and indistinguishable from anyone else’s, and I thought I might confuse the children with my different style). I think she was just teasing me but she said my ‘r’ was badly formed. How rude!
This coming week is the holiday of Toussaint. I’ve been told that on All Souls Day all the cemeteries in Martinique are lit by candles (one on each grave). I’m thinking of going up to the enormous graveyard in Sainte Marie to see this holy spectacle but it will only be feasible if I can find someone with a car to give me a lift. I know all the shops are closed on Nov 1st and 2nd and there’s no taekwondo on so I need to think of something to do other than battle with insects chez moi.
I don’t know how I’m ever going to cope with having a real job. I only work three days a week here (and I’ve only done a week and a half so far) and I’m exhausted. I’m telling myself it’s the heat and the stress of travelling by taxico and arriving sweaty at every destination but I don’t know how much of that is true. I’ll let you know once I get my own car.
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