Both are awesome starts (and make we want to learn more about the Anansi). :-)
I think if you put them both in the present tense (which feels more compelling to me) and combine them, it could be even more powerful:
Yvonne stares at the screen. The little blinking cursor ignores her and keeps on blinking. She knows that she should be writing, but her mind is just empty. She keeps trying to think of what she could write about the Anansi, but what could she say that hasn’t already been said?
She shakes her head and tries to concentrate. She is a graduate student. She has been researching the Anansi for years now, and she probably knows more than anyone else about that folklore figure: all but the oldest elders in the tribes in West Africa, of course. She knows all the origin stories, and she even knows all the dark stories about the Anansi turning into a spider spirit to trick people into giving up their own wisdom and knowledge [to the Anansi – can delete]. And she knows they were all just tales, usually told to scare the little kids into obeying their parents. She has interviewed hundreds of people across the lands of Ghana, Togo, Angola, and even here in South Africa at the University of Cape Town where she saits, still staring at her computer screen.
From the edge of her vision, she spots a spider scurry beneath her keyboard, instantly transporting to an interview two years ago, the one that has haunted her ever since:
“Oh yessss. I know the Anansssssi.”
Yvonne turns her head and looks in the dim light at the wrinkles around the lips of the matriarch of the tribe. This memory is still fresh, despite the intervening years. Bits of light filter in through the sticks that make up the walls of the sturdy hut. It smells smoky inside the hut, despite the lack of any fire. She gently prods the woman, “Yes, please, go on.”
[… rest of second intro…]
The joints of the woman’s chair creak as she nods her head and her entire body shakes with the effort. She replies, “It was a long time ago, but I can tell you what I saw that night…”
[then snap back to first intro]
“Yvonne!”
The yell startles Yvonne, almost making her fall out of her chair, pulling her instantly back to Cape Town.
“Yvonne, have you gotten anything written up on that last interview you had?”
She wipes the cobwebs from her mind. Professor Connor is a bit older, but not really “too” old. He is tall and thin… [continue intro one with professor Connor, then introduce Hamsa a bit later?]