Creepy crawly critters

This week has been filled with bugs of all sorts.  They have been at my house and in my classroom.  The ones in my house aren’t quite as bad because I get a large book or a shoe and throw it at them before I can psych myself out.  The ones in my classroom are a little more challenging as with them come 19 screaming 1^st graders.  For some reason, the screams throw me off and I become jittery.  I’ve also come to realize that I really despise cockroaches.  Wednesday was particularly bad as we had 4 large ones scurry across our classroom at various times during the day.  There’s nothing like 19 little ones completely engaged and focused on what you’re learning (ok, completely engaged in my mind) and having the moment shattered by a pest.  It would’ve been easier to push the roaches out of my thoughts and still count it as a successful day of learning if it hadn’t been for the incident in the last hour.  As we were completing a science experiment, one of my students yelled, “centipede!” I didn’t even look over because in my mind, a little centipede isn’t worth a glance.  I told them not to worry and we kept our scientist hats on, so to speak.  However, the centipede crawled its way between backpacks and out again and screams returned as it made its way toward us.  I then looked over to see the biggest centipede I’ve seen in my life.  I had no idea these things even existed!  It was longer than my hand and wider.  It had long black legs and pinchers up by its head.  It definitely warranted the screams it provoked and frankly, I wanted to chime in.  However; being the teacher, I had to remain calm and composed.  I moved my class to the opposite corner of the classroom and refusing to take on the large centipede, I called for someone to come help.  One of the gardeners came in with a broom and tried smashing it, but this thing just kept on crawling (I should say slithering as its movement resembled that of a snake).  He swept it out of the classroom (literally) and I tried to calm down my students.  I found out later that these are very hard to kill and that they are in fact poisonous, to the point that they can kill a child.  I was unsuccessful at calming down my students and had to count the last thirty minutes of school as a wash.  The following day was much less eventful in the area of critters and for that, I am thankful.   I’m hoping that is the only poisonous centipede I’ll encounter.  Malawi will indeed toughen me up in many ways, including the area of creepy crawlers!

This is a picture taken by Danie who works at the ABC Clinic.  She found it in her house one morning.