Tarantula + Scorpion = Torpion

I am looking for my underwear and instead I find a tarantula. I scream. 

No one in my host family reacts so I feign surprise and yell a second time, hoping they will come running with a flamethrower or another time-tested tarantula-killing weapon.  Again, no one reacts, so I shine my flashlight on the spider and ask my uncle, “What do you do with these?” (Translation: please kill this for me). He helpfully informs me that they are very dangerous and that we should probably kill it. He then points the flashlight at it and looks at me expectantly. Awesome.

I want to ask if anyone has a flamethrower handy but I think I remember my host dad taking it with him earlier that day, mentioning something about unicorn hunting, so I pick up the nearest weapon – a two liter bottle of Dasani. I swing, I miss, and now the tarantula is in a water bottle-proof corner, looking up at us as if to say, “Ha! This is one place the Coca Cola corporation can´t get to me!” Aggravated and embarrassed by his confidence, I shout, “Get a broom!” to no one in particular and my host sister retrieves one and hands it to my uncle.  He inches the broom handle to within maybe two centimeters of the spider and then strikes.  It moves, he misses, and now there is not a tarantula crouched neared my bed, there is a missing tarantula hiding near my bed.

We move bags, look under sleeping pads and shine the light in every crack on the wall. My host uncle’s light stops searching as he points to a new enemy - a scorpion tail sticking out from behind a board. He helpfully informs me that scorpions can sting and that we should probably kill it. He then jabs at it with the broom, misses, and now there are a scorpion and a tarantula hiding near my bed.

Awesome.   

Normally, the creature that sleeps closest to me is a hen that lives in a box about four feet away (fresh eggs anyone?).  We find the tarantula in the box, eyeing the hen, and I have no doubt he intends to eat her. Compelled to prove my manhood in front of the family (and save the hen), I grab the broom and stab at the spider, missing again.  But this time, I keep at him, force him into a corner, and pulverize him. I don’t stop stabbing until he is reduced to pieces and even then, three full grown men have to grab my arms and subdue my blood rage. Satisfied, I am about to return the broom, when I remember the scorpion; we continue the hunt.

My host uncle stabs at the wall with a kitchen knife and I wait with the broom for the scorpion to appear. I, of course, miss and the scorpion scurries outside, only to meet a more capable foe – my host aunt. She kills him first try and while I can’t see her, I can only assume she used her bare hands and then sucked the poison out of the tail for fun.

For the first time in months, I was afraid to go to bed last night.