Language Experience

We started back with our Arabic lessons again today, and had a lovely "language experience" to talk through together.

Just before the lesson, I was going home to mix up the Tang that we usually drink during our lessons, when I saw a snake cross the path behind me. Yup, a snake. He wasn't so big - maybe 2 feet long, but only 2 cm in diameter (I think). I'm not a fan of snakes, so I went to tell the guys who work on the compound that I saw a snake and where he went. So James came with me and I showed him where the snake was. He had a big stick in his hand - definitely the weapon of choice when it comes to snakes.

However, the little snake was hiding and no amount of poking and prodding in the bush would scare him out. Smart little snake!

So James left, as it was the end of the work day, and Justin, our Arabic teacher came. We started our lesson with the usual basic conversation practice. My brain is really rusty on the things we learned before, so I really need a lot of practice with just the basics again :(. Anyways, whilst we were conversing, one of Annamarie's colleagues came by to drop off her computer bag (she had been dropped at the "saloon" to get her hair done). As he walked up the pathway to our house, he was quite visibly frightened by something... it was the snake coming out of hiding!

I did not want to leave a live snake slithering around 10 feet from our front door - I've already had a snake under my bed in this country, thank you, so I asked Annamarie's colleague and Justin to kill the poor little snake. We all ran in different directions, looking for a stick with which to kill the snake. Justin found one first, and soundly beat the snake to death. He then took the body and threw it over the fence... phew, the snake was dead. Of course, afterwards, Richard asked if we had cut the head off - if you don't cut the head off, so the belief goes, a frog might come along and breath life back into the snake, thereby bringing him back to life. And somehow, I don't think you would want a resurrected snake who you had beaten to death coming back for revenge! So I'm still a little worried, since we didn't cut the snake's head off...

Anyways, after all that drama, we all went back into the house and had a good Arabic lesson about "dabiiba" and how to kill them. I also learned that people around here believe that a snake will never bite a child. And indeed, our Arabic teacher knows of plenty of adults who have been bitten and died as a result of a snake bite, but he's never known a child who has suffered from a snake bite!

Jackie was rather sad that we killed an innocent little snake... but I have to admit, in my worldview, the only good snake is a dead snake ... I fit in with the local population in that respect. They don't seem to differentiate between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes - they just kill any snake the see! I still have to learn first hand the fine art of beating a snake to death, though. Every time I tell Africans that I've seen a snake, the first thing they ask me is, "Did you kill it?", and when I reply in the negative, they always ask, "Why not?!". So one of these days, I'm just going to have to pick up a stick and kill it myself!