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Mama Santos and Family
Mama began by chopping down the sugar cane, Mama's wife went off to look for some food for lunch, so I followed Mama's nephew, Gabriel, to find wood for the fire. I hauled thick branches of wood up the steep hillside. They told me to collect the wood was a man’s job, but since I didn’t have a man, I wanted to cover all my share of duties myself.
After, I went into the open walled sugar hut to help Mamas wife, Maria, start up the fire and get lunch on. I soon discovered starting the fire was also an effective way of flushing all of the giant spiders in the roof and around the hut. My first encounter was when one of the hand-sized wolf spiders landed on my knee and quite happily sat there for a while. I noticed him as I leaned my elbow on my knee, I forcefully suppressed a scream, and trying to maintain my calm (well..) frantically flicked him off - he went sailing across the hut towards Mama's wife and bounced off her arm. I was horrified; I hardly knew her and had just managed to launch this fanged, hairy creature at her. I looked at her in shocked apology, she looked up at me in surprise, by this time my mouth had taken on an 'O' shape, I apologised, she grinned and we both started laughing. Phew.
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