Killed by a Maasai spear

December 21, 2006

At the risk of revealing that I am actually a wimp (at least in this one particular area), I will tell about the cockroach. My family all knows that I have a phobia of cockroaches that began at age four when I stepped on one barefoot the first year we lived in the Philippines. Imagine the size of a 4-yr-old foot, and then imagine the mutant-ninja size cockroaches we have in the Philippines. Perhaps you will understand why I have a phobia. I can’t even look at them without my skin crawling, let alone get close enough to kill one and hear that repulsive crunch and see the oozing guts.

Just yesterday morning it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a cockroach in Uganda yet. A miracle! What joy! Maybe they don’t have cockroaches in Uganda. I meant to mention this to Jon & Cher. So you can imagine how jolting it was when that evening I turned around from the bathroom sink to discover a huge, ugly, red cockroach standing right behind me. I managed to get out of the bathroom and close the door, knowing full well that the cockroach could get out under the door, but needing to distance myself from this horror.

Because my bedroom door is right next to the bathroom door, I didn’t want to take my eyes off of it. So I decided to text message Jon upstairs. “There is an enormous cockroach down here that you need to kill.” It cost me 50 cents. Worth the money.

Jon and Josh came down, armed with Jon’s Maasai spear and other various weapons. Knowing my brother, who still likes to torture-tease me like I’m a 5-yr-old, I went into my bedroom and closed the door while they killed it. They had a great time making fun of me.

At least I have a mosquito net to keep them off my bed…or so I thought. This morning, Josh and Audra told me they found a dead cockroach clinging to the INSIDE of their mosie net!! The nets have a pesticide on them to kill mosquitoes on contact, so it probably killed the roach, but not before it got inside the net. Now I’m scared.