My first snake sighting was a couple weeks after I got here. I was walking across the compound to my tukul in the evening and a few yards ahead of me my headlamp showed a black snake slithering away from me. I had always wondered how I would react the first time I saw a snake out here. Well, I was perfectly calm and backed up a few steps. I heard Amos, one of our watchmen, doing a walk-around of the compound with his flashlight and he happened to be walking my way at that moment so I called to him that I had seen a snake. However, I then wondered if that was a mistake because Amos is partially blind. Nevertheless, he carries a stick and loves to chase any stray animals (goats, pigs, dogs, you name it) out of the compound. He went over to where I'd seen the snake and started to beat the grass, looking for it, but never did find it. The next day we realized there was a hole in the ground near my tukul that the snake might live in so we filled it in and that was the end of that. That was the first snake I saw here but now that I've seen others I think it was probably a cobra.
Then there was the snake on Grace's porch! This was in broad daylight and she was coming back to her tukul after having a shower, and there was this little black snake (we don't know what kind) curled up on the porch. She started calling our names and yelling "Snake!" until Vicki and I heard her and came running, calling the others. Abebe killed that one with a stick.
Another day, Vicki and I were seeing some patients in the watchmen's tukul by our gate. Nehemiah, our compound manager, was bringing a big bag of charcoal into the tukul, when all of a sudden he tells us, just as calmly as you please, "There's a snake in this bag." He dragged the bag out of the tukul and started beating it and emptying the charcoal onto the ground, trying to find the snake. Nobody gets too excited--we carried on seeing the little malnourished boy and his family inside the tukul. After a few minutes we saw Nehemiah beating something with a stick and it turned out to be a big black cobra! I think about that cobra almost every time I reach into our big bag of charcoal to light the fire!
Another night, I walked across the compound to the latrine and on my way back past Vicki's tukul, she called out that 10 minutes earlier, Titus, our watchman on that night had killed a big cobra nearby. That was the night I decided to forget the latrine at night and opt for a chamber pot! I now rarely leave my tukul after dark. The next morning Titus showed us the 5 foot + cobra he had killed! He had been doing a walk-around the compound and came across this snake, heading in a direction that could have easily crossed my path 10 minutes later. I have great pics of Titus and his big stick and the cobra--one with him holding it up next to Grace and it was longer than she is tall! Can't wait to show you when I get to Nairobi!
Today, a soldier came to the compound to tell us a man at the SPLA camp had been bitten by a cobra. Sorry, Dad, no anti-venom serum here! We do however have a few things we can try when someone is bitten. We have a home-made device that delivers electric shocks to the bite that we learned how to use in Nairobi. Each of our stations has one. They are not exactly proven to be effective but there is lots of anecdotal evidence from many places around the world that they work and out here it's worth trying anything that might help. I also have a device called Aspivenin that uses suction to draw out the poison from recent bites. Abebe, Vicki, and I grabbed these devices and a couple of our medical books and followed the soldier up to the camp to see what we could do. Johnson, the evangelist from D. church "happened" to arrive at the compound just when the soldier did with his little girl who's sick so he ended up going with us. When we got to the army camp, the soldier motioned for us to wait in a small hut with a table and chairs in it and he and some other men brought the man with the snakebite on his big toe. They had immobilized his leg, which was good. He was in pain but seemed to be suffering no serious effects from the venom. He had actually been bitten 3 hours earlier. Abebe and Vicki delivered 4 electric shocks and we figured there was no point in using the Aspivenin device so long after the bite. The electric shocks are supposed to be given as soon as possible after the bite also but have been seen to be effective in stopping the spread of the poison several hours later so we tried it. We gave him some painkillers but really the most important thing we did for this man was to pray for him. It was great to have Johnson there, because he could pray for him in Arabic. We could not communicate with any of the men because none of them were M. but all from different tribes with the common language of Arabic. We don't think too much venom was injected by that snake because the man looked quite comfortable by the time we left. It could have been much worse. We said we'd go and check how he's doing tomorrow.
Thanks for praying for our safety out here--I hope these stories illustrate why we need it! God continues to give us all sorts of opportunities to reach out to people--from malnourished children and their families to the soldiers living nearby.
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