Man vs Snakes...

It’s amazing to watch the seasons unfold here in Africa. Unlike the fairly distinct summer-autumn-winter-spring of many parts of the world, Zambia has more of a cooler, dry season (or dust season), moving into the hot, dry season (or very dusty season), eventually changing to the wet season (mud season) that we are currently enjoying.

The wet season brings some welcome relief from the extreme heat of October, helping to put an end to the dust, and transforming the local environment. The trees and grass spring to life with vibrant splashes of green. The flying ants emerge from the ground in great swarms every evening. The frogs come out to devour the ants. And of course, the snakes come out to complete the picture.

Unfortunately this ecosystem occurs in the midst of our Mukinge neighbourhood, and inevitably results in some rather unwanted encounters.

Our first experience with one of these little critters was around dusk about 6 weeks ago, when a small, grey snake tried to come through our front door. Thankfully our great gardener had left his grass cutter nearby, and I was able to easily dispose of this little reptile. To be honest, I actually derived confidence from this experience. After all, we’d had our “snake experience” now. We could tick it off our list of things done in Zambia. Dave 1, Snake 0.

This picture doesn't do the size of the snake justice!

He had it coming

8 evenings later, Mary and I were have dinner at about 1930hrs. The power went off, and we commenced the struggle to find a light in the darkness. Eventually I found my headlight and we moved to the kitchen to find the matches, only to both leap back as a rather large black snake came slithering under our front door and into the hole down the back of our kitchen bench. This was a significantly more unsettling experience than our first snake encounter for a few reasons. 1 – the snake was in our home (how rude!) 2 – we had literally had our front door reinforced two days earlier to prevent this exact thing from occurring. And finally 3 – the position this snake was in, completely blocked our path to our outer room with every snake slaughtering weapon a man could dream of (African grass cutter, rake, shovel, broom, you name it…)

After we regained a little composure (ie – I worked up the courage to go past the kitchen to get some snake whacking gear, and Mary repositioned herself on top of the dinner table with the torch in hand), we commenced the serious efforts to rid our home of this beast. Following about 15mins of stalemate in which neither hunter nor the hunted gave an inch, we decided to call in the United Nations. Shortly after, we were joined by fellow missos from India, the US, the UK and of course another Aussie. Sadly after a further 2 hours of trying every trick in the book – boiling water, noise (including Toby Mac cranked to 11), sticks shoved up holes, pulling the kitchen apart, etc – the elusive elapid remained intact and out of sight (possibly in our kitchen, bathroom, roof or Toby’s room).

A google images impression of what the black snake may have looked like

Thus to cut a long story short, we became refugees of the snake season. Our much-loved “Pool House” was now the snake house, and we couldn’t be sure that the next thing Tobes picked up off the floor was not a black snake.

Whilst we quite confidently won the first battle of the snake season, the snakes did win the war, and like any self-respecting citizens we packed up our belongings and moved house! - D