The spider was huge!

Half jumping and making little screaming noises, I was carrying out a huge spider from my room on a magazine and passed my host mom sitting on the porch. When she looked at me questioningly, I told her that I had to get it out of my room since it had a huge egg sac underneath it, and I didn't want to kill it. I was searching for the words in Spanish to explain that I didn't want all it's little babies running around my room if I squished the spider and they all came out, but Valeria filled in my words saying, "And every living creature has a right to life." I agreed with her to avoid my squishing explanation and let her think I had more noble reasons for not killing the mother spider.

An accomplishment for the week that made me feel great is that a girl my age called me last night to invite me over to her house this weekend. I may be making friends, however slowly it is taking. I actually met her this weekend when I consented to hang out with a high school student again -- ok, so it was actually really fun, and a bunch of us went to a little river/water hole area to play in the water and we played cards together and made little fruit smoothies. And now all those girls are trying to find a house for me to rent in their neighborhood area! It's funny, because when we were at the river, we had to leave when a couple motorcycles pulled up, as some men were coming to bathe.

Sunday was Mother's Day, and it is a big deal here. I went to a program at the elementary school on Friday afternoon where they had presents and a show for all the mothers, including some poetry and singing and dancing. Very cute. For our family's celebration we gathered at the grandmother's house a few houses down from me, and all of us single females did the cooking and dishwashing. After our big lunch, we headed out into the middle of nowhere to the house that my host mom and all her brothers and sisters grew up in. What a hard life to grow up there, out of the reach of any nearby communities! It was beautiful, though. The rich uncle had just cut a road out to the house so we drove up instead of having to hike through the bush to get there, but I think going on those steep hills in the back of the pickup was a lot scarier than going on foot! I had a plan of action of where to jump if the truck lost control; luckily I didn't have to use it.