Snakes and other guests
on September 12, 2008
It’s hot in Livingstone now. In the mornings we often open the outside doors to allow the fresh morning breeze to come into the house. The other day, as Nicola and I were getting the children ready to go to school, we were all chatting in the living room. Through the door to the kitchen I saw, in the corner of my eye, something slither across the kitchen floor and disappear under the stove.
I couldn’t be certain but I thought that more than the morning breeze had come in through the kitchen door; I thought it might be a snake. “Come on, kids, let’s get you on your way to school.” As I said this, I calmly closed the living room door to the kitchen. We bundled the children out of the house, into the car and off they went.
Now I had to decide what to do with my visitor in the kitchen. I was sure it was a snake. I was also sure that I was not going to be a hero and try to wrestle with it myself. Fortunately Livingstone is full of interesting people and one of them happens to love snakes – Joe is our resident snake catcher. I gave him a call.
Within an hour Joe was in my house. He had to pull the stove out from the kitchen units to get to his prey, but when this was done, there curled up against the wall was a very large snake. Joe quickly held the snake down with his cleft stick, picked it up, popped it into a sack, climbed into his car and drove off to release the snake..
It’s not often we see snakes at the hotel, let alone come calling at our staff housing compound. They are probably more scared of us humans than we are of them. It was just unfortunate that this one took a wrong turn and ended up in my kitchen – I am sure it would have preferred to be out in the parklands surrounding the hotel. Anyhow, it all ended well and it now has a new home far away from the hotel.
