Neighborhood Watch: Snake Edition

There are currently five Togolese men rooting around my house looking for holes. Snake sized holes to be precise. My neighbor, Arcade, showed up early this morning with his crew to oversee the search. Now, to my horror, they are on hands and knees, trying to ignore the grime, dog poop, and all the other gross things I try to ignore on a daily basis in and outside of my house, on a full out snake hunt. How did this all begin, you might ask? When I decided to take a shower last night, would be my answer.

Not to sound like a cliché, but it started out as any normal quiet night at my house. I had been at the office for a bit, gone to the market, made lentils and rice for dinner, and was planning on having an early night by myself. Although it’s fairly cold out at night by African standards, I needed to wash off the dirt and dust from the day. Even if I didn’t leave the house, the layer of dust that coats everything in the house rises up and clings to you every time you move.

I am lucky enough to be one of three volunteers (out of over a hundred) in country with running water and electricity. I am fully appreciative of this fact (especially because my first year of service I had neither). Even though the shower water is icy cold (believe me, because of harmattan – the windy season- this isn’t a pleasant thing) , it still trumps a warm bucket shower any day.

Running through the list of things I needed to get done this week, (final project reports, grad school scholarship applications, etc), I got under the shower head and proceeded to lather with soap from head to foot (note: the order is important). I was completely sudsy and ready to start on the arduous task of cleaning my feet (this can only be understood if you have lived in Africa for any length of time, there are layers of dirt. The dusty top layer, the dirt layer that can be confused with your chako tan lines, and then the layer of grime that has actually somehow been absorbed into your skin – usually around the bottoms of your feet).

As I began to bend over, something caught my eye. I twisted my head towards the corner of the shower stall (which is roughly 3ft by 4ft), and saw a large brown snake slowly swaying back and forth rising out of my shower drain. For an instant, I thought I was delusional and seeing things. But as I continued to question my mental stability, it had already risen a foot out of the drain and less than six inches from where I stood. I decided on the off chance that I wasn’t crazy, I should do something. I literally could not find the air to scream. I dashed out of the shower, suds and all, ran for my room, grabbed a pagne and my cell phone, and dashed outside.

I immediately called Liam, who lives about 15 minutes away in the next village over.

Stacie:“THERE’SASNAKEINMYSHOWERTHERESASNAKEINMYSHOWEROHGODOHGODITNEARLYTOUCHEDMETHERESASNAKEINMYSHOWER”
Liam: “What? Hello? Stace? What’s wrong?? I can’t understand you”
Stacie:“THERESAFREAKINGSNAKEINMYSHOWERITWASGINOURMOUSCOMEQUICKANDKILLITICANTGOBACKINSIDE”
Liam: “Still can’t understand you, talk slower”
Stacie:“ICANTTHERESASNAKEINMYSHOWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Liam:“A SNAKE?!”
Stacie:“YESASNAKETHERESAREALLYBIGSNAKEITSTRYINGTOKILLME”

By this point, I am in my front yard, covered in soap, wrapped in a towel, and the little boy from next door is just staring at me while I’m unintelligibly yelling into the phone. Liam was too far away to be any immediate help. By this time the snake could have left the shower (the water was still running) and slithered into any crevice in my house. This required immediate action by someone much braver than me. I got off the phone and started yelling for my next door neighbor, Arcade. Maggi-Man (he works for Nestle and owns a Maggi-cube truck which he takes me around town in from time to time) go way back. He has helped me out of many a’ pickle, without much choice other than neighborly duty and feeling of obligation to help the cowardly white girl who lives by herself.

He had two friends over, and they all looked for something to bludgeon with as I quickly explained what happened. Armed with a pcb pipe, a table leg, and a large branch pulled from my mango tree, they cautiously entered my house as I waited outside clutching my phone. I could hear them looking around and then scuffling and a lot of beating noises. The re-emerged from my house shortly after with the snake, at least three feet in length, draped twice over the pipe. It. Was. HUGE. And still moving. They had bludgeoned like the best of ‘em, but I could still see it’s tongue flicking. I had the heebie-geebies in the worst way possible. They took it outside the compound and threw it away, and after much discussion on how it could get into my house, they decided I was safe and left.

I entered my house, certain now that under every chair and around every corner a slowly swaying snake was waiting for me. I had just enough time to see the blood splatters that started in the bathroom and continued into the living room before the power went out. I was huddled on my couch in the living room in pitch black dark, wondering how one snake, albeit a very large snake, could hold so much blood. Mazzy was practically sitting on top of me. She had missed all the excitement sleeping on the back porch, but now she was on full alert realizing I was scared witless. So I called home. Thankfully it was a reasonable hour in Oregon, and my parents already awake. I have had enough experience living abroad to wait until I wasn’t at a full panic to call home. Parents tend to think of the worst when you call internationally and are screaming into the phone. Don’t ask me why, their worriers. ;)

Once I had relayed my adventures to my parents, vowed to never shower again, checked every corner of my house, and turned on all the lights in the house, I sequestered myself in my bedroom, barred the door, put a towel against the crack in the door, I tucked my mosquito net around my bed as best I could, and tried to sleep, with the light on.

The rest of the night and next morning passed by uneventfully, until Arcade and his men showed up. The found the hole under my house where the pipe had been dislodged so anything could come in or out. They cut back my mango tree, just in case it had been living in it, and climbed up on the roof to….well I’m still not sure what they did up there, but it sounded anti-snakey.

All-in-all it was a very Togolese experience. And as usual I feel ridiculous but otherwise unharmed. I must be more used to living in Africa than I thought. I am not traumatized like I thought I would be. It has pushed me to the decision to finally get curtains for my kitchen though. I’ll want some privacy when I’m taking a bath in the sink.