Until now, I almost forgot that I've been in Africa. In our trip's glory days, we were forced to wear sweatshirts and cover ourselves with wool blankets at night. When we awoke the next day, we still needed pants and sweatshirts. Ahh memories...
These past few days have been blistering. When we wake up, it's hot. Even before the sun breaks though the clouds, it's hot. We keep the windows and door closed in our room the entire day, yet it's still hot! Times like these, I wish I wasn't staying in such a modestly dressed village. I would absolutely strip down to my recently purchased boxer briefs and walk between the shaded areas of our house. Maybe consider a dip in the in-house well. (It's like a hot tub with really high walls.)
But, the 111 degree, moderately humid weather is tolerable. We've been keeping up with our fluid intake (as my dad likes to call it) and taking lots of siestas.
The issue? Our new visitors.
Every cushion, mat, pillow now needs to be checked for scorpions. We've already found four. No biggie, we're not too afraid of these guys.
![]() |
Yo scorpion, imma find you. |
Just tonight, the women taking care of the house called us over. They found some bug (called something in Berber - I smile and nodded when they told me) that flies and latches onto flesh, giving a lethal injection of poison to its unlucky prey. Oh, and it walks around like a crab. Great, now we have a possessed spidery crab... thing that's going to kill us. One more thing, the women said a 16 year old girl in the mountains here died last year from its bite. Hichem and I are now super paranoid. (He freaked out after seeing the shadow of a blanket on the clothesline... heheh got him.) We still are not exactly sure what this mystery bug is. We're thinking its a Running Crab Spider, but its information doesn't match the grotesque stories.
![]() |
To those with expertise in North African taxonomy - what the heck is this? |
...And there's another one somewhere in our house. Fantastic. Im looking forward to an easy sleep tonight.
Your half-terrified friend,
Brent