The Wily Cekoroba

I've been scanning and backing up CDs and DVDs of photos, letters, newsletters, etc. onto two external drives. While doing so, I came across this letter that our son wrote to us from Mali. I forgot that I actually posted it in 2012. It's so hard to remember what I've already written about since I've written over 3,000 posts in the last 11 years. Anyway, I just can't resist posting it again since it makes me laugh every time read it.

My son, Keola served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa in 2002.   Our lives centered on waiting for each of his letters for the 27 months that he lived in a small, isolated, rural village called Koro Bada.  

Keola knows my aversion to spiders and wrote the following for me:

…Oh yeah, mom I promised that I would write about the spiders.  Cekoroba yayoroba is a lean spider about 3 inches long with large stiff front legs.  Cekoroba is a respectful term used for elderly men, it literally means stiff or set in their ways.  The front legs give the spider an ungraceful walk which shouldn't enable them to go fast. The cekoroba however, is all about speed and deception.  

For about 3 nights when it was raining I had to sleep inside.  For some reason they were particularly active that day.  I found one running across my wall so I got out my field lamp and fly swatter and we fought back and forth for half an hour. 

Once I went to whack him while he was on the wall and he jumped a good 2 feet off the wall and scared the shit out of me.  Other times he chased me or hid under the bed/sofa making darting attacks. 

Finally after expending much of my energy, I got him with the fly swatter and smacked him ruthlessly.  I was relieved and began to sweep him towards the door.  That crazy spider was playing dead, jumped up and ran under a chair.  I traded the fly swatter (key word “fly”) for  a good stick and commenced pummeling the cekoroba till he was pretty much pulp.  The others heard about this and continued to torture me for the rest of the night.

One incident; while lying on the bed I looked over at the wall and saw a medium sized cekoroba on the wall.  I rolled off my bed to grab my lantern and right next to the lantern was another one waiting to ambush me.  Yes, diversionary tactics and predation.  They are smart, fast and not the least bit dangerous.  Or maybe that’s what they want you to think…"

So much has happened since that letter of 17 years ago. Keola has settled down with another Peace Corps volunteer and they have two beautiful boys. Someday, I will have to share this letter with our wonderful grandsons.