A Nightmare

Sunday 22 October

I woke with a start and threw it somewhere. It had weight. It was big. I had not idea what it was and it was stuck in my bed trapped by the mosquito net that obviously had an opening to allow such a creepy crawly in to walk across my face.

My room is like a coffin and with such a rude 1 am alarm awakening, I was totally disoriented finding myself trapped unable to find my way out. I sat in silence understanding the advice of veteran Peace Corps volunteers who said sleep with your headlamp.

Taking a few deep breaths, I oriented myself and found the opening escaping from a second encounter.

I was tired and tried to fall asleep on the prayer mat but the concrete floor wouldn't allow me to get comfortable.

Fine! I thought to myself. I am going to trap that thing and remove it from my bed.

My torch lit up the shadow into a wall filling monster as it hung on the white netting. It was huge probably 6 inches long, a segmented black body with at least 100 legs. It moved super fast but I was able to bat it from my bed with a notebook where it escaped to who knows where.

Tucking my mosquito net tightly around my mattress, I fell asleep snuggled to my headlamp. It was a pretty scary experience, but for some reason I was calm.

Anyone know what insect I had an encounter with? Was it poisonous?