TARANTULAS!

Exciting news! After 5 days of vomiting and stabbing stomach pains from food poisoning, I am living and walking and breathing and even eating! My bleak outlook on life has slightly faded with the distracting challenge of designing my lesson plans for the American University in Cairo junior summer program, which starts this Wednesday. I'm teaching kids of all ages (between 6-15) in Social Skills (etiquette - adorable, right?), Going Green, Let's Speak [English], and Singing. That's right, singing. If my Madagascar theme goes as planned, the 6-7-year-olds and I will be dressing up as jungle animals and singing and dancing to "I like to move it, move it" at the end-of-month concert. Ryan warned me that I will only be able to hear that song so many times.

But the real thrilling news is that we have TARANTULAS in our building! For Ryan's account and pictures, see his blog: exploringmind85.blogspot.com. My life has become a desert action movie. And so many options now present themselves. Apart from those listed below by a German exterminator in Cairo, John suggested we open our apartment to the public, equip them with shotguns, and release them on the spiders in manner of the video game Time Crisis. But here's what the exterminator had to say to another resident of Cairo when she found spiders in her building a couple years ago:

Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007

Dear Ms. Heidi, after I contacted the lab in Germany they have had give the advice to contact Dr. Martin Kreuels. He is one of the leadings spider scientists in Germany. He confirms that the spider on the pictures is real tarantulas and it is a male spider. The problem you have is that in your neighbourhood must be female tarantulas. The female birth 300 to 500 new tarantulas. Now we have four options:

1.) Catch them and bring them back somewhere in the nature. Spray the apartment against all other kind of insects

2.) Kill them, but it is not nice and will leave a lot of dirt at your home.

3.) Leave them at your home because they are normally not dangerous for humans.

4.) Catch them and put them into a terrarium and feed them with the new tarantulas. Because they eat each other if they don't have enough space in the terrarium.

I know John's vote is that we move (so he can be closer to his new job as an editor at Egypt Today magazine). Noelle's vote would be to stay here and battle the beasts because she (we) love this apartment. Ryan will be swaying toward John's vote because of his arachnophobia and the little mouse he saw run across our bedroom floor the other day.