Cobras and Christmas

Mozambique Spitting Cobra

Our pet cobra.

Let me tell you a little story...... I woke up on a Sunday morning (four Sundays ago to be exact) and stood up to put my sandals on in our sleeping hut. I felt some liquid drip on my neck and I looked up because I thought maybe our thatch roof was leaking. I didn’t see any water dripping down and it looked like it was sunny outside, so I ignored it and went back to putting on my sandals. Then I felt the drips hit the back of my neck again, but this time I heard a faint “hissss” as well. I turned to look behind me and saw a cobra with his mouth wide open about a foot away from my head, hanging just above the door. I literally jumped across the bed to the other side of the hut and Lindsey and I sat there for about 20 minutes in the opposite corner, hoping that the he would eventually crawl out. He didn’t. He sat there, just hanging above the door staring at us with his neck flared out. Eventually, I put our blanket over my head like a cape for protection (cause honestly, I didn’t know if he was going to like let go of the grass and drop down on me or something) and took one step and did a supermanish jump out of the door, followed of course by a graceful face plant in the sand outside. I ran over to some of the other teachers’ houses who are apparently “experienced” snake killers and they came over with some sticks to kill the snake. Lindsey then jumped out of the hut as well, and we knocked the snake from our roof down to the ground - where he was sentenced to death by sticks.

It turned out to be a Mozambique Spitting Cobra, which according to Google is the second most dangerous (not deadly) snake in Africa behind the Black Mamba. The Peace Corps gave us a snake book about all of the common snakes in Namibia with pictures and everything, so it was easy to find out what kind of snake it was because not that many cobras actually spit. It didn’t really scare me much at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more freaked out I became. The snake easily could have bit my neck or spit in my eyes possibly causing blindness. It was a Sunday morning so the one health clinic in town was closed, so it would have been hours until I got help. I’m telling you, God was watching out for me - cause that could have been really really bad!

I have my trusty axe handle, ready to smack him when he falls

Meet Shiner and Tafel - our two new kittens

To counter the snakes, we got two kittens. The week before the snake came into our hut, an entire mouse family moved into the mud walls of our sleeping hut. I didn’t really care about it that much, besides the fact that they kept kicking dirt out onto our floor from within their holes. It was more of a minor nuisance.  However, snakes eat mice so that could have been one of the main reasons why the snake was in our hut in the first place. If we kill the mice, which I have killed all 7 of the ones that were in our hut with a mouse trap, then hopefully the snakes won’t come. So the kittens will keep the mice at bay once they are full grown which will deter the snakes, but we were also told that snakes won’t even come near cats because cats also kill snakes - so hopefully that is true. Another one of the teachers also gave us an old car tire, and said that snakes hate the smell of burning rubber. He said to burn some of it once a week and it will keep the snakes away. Can anyone verify if that is actually true or just an old wives tale? 

School so far

Since Lindsey and I don’t actually start teaching until the start of the next semester in January, the school day has been going by pretty slow for us since we don’t have much to do yet - which is from 7:30 AM - 1:20 PM. The Peace Corps wants us to use this time to observe the Namibian school system and how teachers run their classes in Namibia. It is a fantastic idea, but unfortunately there is not much for us to “observe.” The students are studying to take their final exams (which are countrywide examinations made by the Ministry of Education), so they have been spending the majority of the day at school reviewing notes and whatnot. Hence, there is not a lot of teaching going on at the moment, so we still don't have a very clear idea of how the school actually functions.

Interesting statistics - Every year, Namibia releases a form that has each school ranked by the performance of the 10th graders according the region they are in. Mayara Combined School (our school) was dead last in the Kavango Region. And the Kavango Region is the worst performing region in Namibia, so that means that Mayara is literally the worst performing school in all of Namibia. Lets see what those statistics say once Lindsey and I are done with them!!

Meeting the Peace Corps Africa Director

All of us with the Peace Corps Directors

We finally saw some hippos chilling in the river outside the lodge where we ate. 

Last Wednesday, Lindsey and I met up with four other PCVs in the same general area of the Kavango Region that we are, and we all met with the Namibia Country Director, Gilbert Collins, and the Africa Regional Director, Dick Day, for lunch at a lodge along the Kavango River. It was pretty cool to meet the man that is in charge of ALL of Africa for the Peace Corps. We all talked for a few hours and got a free lunch out of it so it was definitely worth it. They also offered us a ride back to our respective villages so we did not have to hitchhike, so the Country Director and the Africa Director have both been inside our hut. They were also very interested in the snake story haha 

Thanksgiving and Christmas

For Thanksgiving, all of the volunteers in the Kavango Region (I think there are 35 of us) are meeting up next weekend at Popa Falls, a very nice area along the Kavango River just outside of Divundu. There will be food, drinks, and good ole American fellowship. What more could you ask for on Thanksgiving? We are also going on a river cruise and another safari at Mahango Game Park for half price - because one of the volunteers is stationed right next to the park and is friends with the owners. It should be a good time.

I am not sure if I will be able to post another entry for the next two months so I might as well tell you all now. The first week in December, all of the volunteers in our groups (Group 36) are meeting for “Reconnect”  in Windhoek with the Peace Corps staff for a week of training sessions and whatnot. I imagine it will be very similar to the training we had the first two months we were in country.

After Reconnect, our entire group is going to Swakopmund for a week. Swakopmund is a coastal town that has a huge German influence and apparently some massive sand dunes (Namibia has the biggest sand dunes in the world). We will stay in beach bungalows for the week, at a cost of $7.50 USD a night I might add, and then a few of us are going to Sossusvlei - the most photographed area in all of Namibia. It is in the Namib Desert, and I have heard it is amazing with giant red sand dunes everywhere. We will camp there for a week, and then go to another costal town called Luderitz for Christmas and New Years. There are two other volunteers from our group actually stationed in Luderitz so we will be staying with them for free! After Luderitz, we are staying the next week with another volunteer in a town called Aroab, where we will probably visit Fish River Canyon (the second largest canyon in the world behind The Grand Canyon) and maybe a game park in South Africa. We will return back to Mayara the first or second week of January to get ready for school which starts back up on January 14th. Needless to say, there is a LOT of traveling coming up for Lindsey and I in December and it is going to be awesome. If you do not hear from us through the blog until January, it is because we are either rolling down sand dunes or sucking down some dark German Lager on the beach.  Until we meet again.....

Side note

I also joined the Mayara men’s soccer team, so for the past two weeks I have been playing soccer for 2 hours a day on the fields outside the school. The majority of the players are in their 20’s - and also in 8th grade. Interesting.

I am also 25,000 words into a novel that I started 2 weeks ago. There was a challenge among volunteers to try to write a 50,000 word novel in November, and since I had more than enough free time, I joined in. And don’t ask, I will probably never let you read it :)

-Tim