Laba-Laba: The Eight-Legged Nightmare

I am a dreamer in the literal sense of the word: I dream a lot. Usually my dreams are positive and amusing. But on the rare occasion that I have a nightmare, it is always about two things: something bad happening to someone I love or spiders (laba-laba in Indonesian). Today, I met the latter of my nightmares.

My day was off to a normal start. I rolled out of bed ten minutes late, rushed to make my oatmeal, noticed the bags under my eyes, put up my hair, and was just about to sit down to eat when I saw it lurking in the corner of my ceiling. Its legs were splayed awkwardly, too large to fit into the corner in which it was trying to hide.

Being near-sighted, I didn’t believe what I was seeing at first – a trick of the light, a stray clump of dust, perhaps even a grasshopper strayed from the rice paddies. I climbed on my bed to get a closer look. And then it moved.

This basically sums up my entire approach to dealing with spiders. (Image borrowed from Pinterest.)

All eight legs extended to the size of my hand as the spider ran with surprisingly ferocious speed towards the center of my wall. In the few screaming seconds it took me to flee from my room, I think I shaved five years off my life.

Safely in the living room, I regrouped. I had an umbrella, a broom, and I was alone. My host family had left only minutes before. The house was dark, quiet, and under siege. I steeled myself for battle.

“This is it, Kelly,” I told myself. “There is no one here to help you. You have to face this fear and defeat it.”

I stood on a chair, trying to get a better vantage point through my open doorway. There was nothing on the ceiling. There was nothing on the floor. There was nothing on the wall. And then I saw movement near the doorway. I screamed again, jumped down from the chair, and armed myself with the umbrella. Slowly, I moved towards the room.

As I inched forward, I heard the spider before I saw it. And in that moment, I knew that I couldn’t do it.

There are many fears I have overcome and many challenges I have faced, but I knew deep in my soul that I had already lost this battle. I needed reinforcements.

Clothed in sweatpants and a tank top, I rushed to the roof and borrowed one of my host father’s shirts from the clothes line. I snuck back downstairs, avoided the area near my room, and rushed out the front door.

Feeling defeated and holding back tears, I knocked on my neighbor’s door and explained the situation. It was not a proud moment, but it had to be. Her husband and young son rushed to my house and searched my room. A fly perched on my uneaten bowl of oatmeal. The spider, however, was nowhere to be found.

At one point, my rescue squad swept a tiny little arachnid out from under my bed and asked if that was it. That was most certainly not the monster that sent me screaming from my room. After looking high and low, my reinforcements assured me that the spider had probably wandered outside. Then they unreassuringly added, “If you see it again, come and get us.”

I tip-toed through the rest of my morning routine, constantly scanning my house-turned-battlefield. “Sure,” I comforted myself, “it’s probably gone…or lurking somewhere…waiting for me…”

When my bag was packed and I was ready to head out the door, I reached for my shoes. Out shot the gangly menace! Another scream, another five years off my life. But this time I knew where he was, trying to wedge his oversized self into the corner.

I ran for my neighbor while raising the alarm, “It’s there! It’s there again!!!” He rushed behind me to the house, snatched the broom from the wall, and vanquished the beast by pushing it out the window. Probably for my benefit, he swiped the window a few more times aggressively.

I looked at my ally holding the broom. He looked back at me.

“Hopefully the spider will go very far away,” I said.

“Yes. But if you see him again, come and get me.”

I can’t imagine what my neighbors were thinking when I, the American, showed up at their door early in the morning with tears in my eyes and babbling something about giant spiders. But I do know that they never questioned me in my time of need. They never made me feel silly or crazy – though I’m sure I looked like I was losing my mind (because I was). Instead, they unquestioningly came to my aid.

And now that spider can tell all his leggy friends that I am not alone. Should he return, an army will be waiting. Peace Corps is constantly encouraging us to find allies in our communities, people who will be there for us and come to our aid when we need it. This morning, I found those allies.