Tension and Release

Snake stories from Namibia are like excuses and that other thing, everyone has one. After spending a weekend with Parker in March, I returned home with some new batteries graciously given to me by my host. My headlamp could see about twice as far in the dark with the new juice. The next night I was performing my nightly ritual of filling up my nalgenes at the communal water tap before going to bed. My brother Titus was also outside and we talked a little bit while staring out over the homestead's brick wall. Just outside the wall is a camelthorn tree where many chickens sleep. Titus noticed something stirring in the branches. Soon I saw it to, there he was, a black snake slithering up the branches towards its oblivious prey. My headlamp cast just enough light to reflect off its slightly iridescent scales.

For the past week our homestead's chickens had been terrorized by a snake and now we had it cornered. Titus alerted the homestead and we all went into snake attack mode. Sebby started up his car and drove along outside to illuminate the camelthorn with his brights. In the meantime, Titus rushed into his room. I thought he would be grabbing a machete. I jumped over the wall and watched helplessly as it sunk its fangs into a chicken. Next thing Titus came running around the wall with a shotgun. That's right, we don't mess around when there's snakes in the vicinity. Between the carlights and my headlamp Titus approached the snake and blasted one shot into it, direct hit! He had shot the snake right through the belly, but it wasn't dead yet. It fell from the tree and was hiding underneath some scrap metal. Sebby dragged it out with a long pole and we started pummeling it with rocks. Tatekulu (Grandfather) came around and snapped some questions in Oshiwambo at us. He picked up his weapon of choice; a piece of scrap metal from the top of a car door. So with car door in hand, Tatekulu clobbered the last breath out of our chicken-murdering intruder.


Not everything on the homestead involves shotguns and bloody executions. Life is pretty laid back, I hope these photos can attest to that.






I'm going on vacation tomorrow, so get pumped for a serious photo update next month.