Snake!

Dear dedicated reader,

I knew there were snakes here, but I knew this in the way that one knows that smoking kills you. I hadn’t actually seen a snake until tonight.

We were sitting peacefully at the dinner table, eating flat, thick pooris and aloo matar (potatoes and peas) when there was a frantic knocking on our front door. This the kind of knock used for all things here, from water delivery to buildings being on fire, so you are never quite sure what or whom you’ll get when you open the door.

“Teacher! Teacher! Come quickly!” A student yelled at me as I opened the door and peered out into the darkness. A crowd had gathered in the courtyard just beyond the barbed wire which separates our house from the main schoolground.

“What’s going on?” I had just enough time to ask before the very same student shined a flashlight directly in my eyes and shouted, “SNAKE!”

“Snake! Snake!” The Greek chorus of hostel boys repeated over and over, huddled in a group staring at something in the courtyard.

I screamed as the flashlight lit up the darkness where a man had grasped a 6 foot long snake just below its head and was holding it up for the boys to see. The boys let out a communal gasp.

The snake, from what I could see from my hiding place behind our door, was long and black and its scales shone in the light let out from our house mingled with the darting light of the flashlight that trembled as the boy’s hand who was holding it must have.

There was a large commotion as a motorcycle started, its headlight shining in the darkness. The man who was nonchalantly brandishing the snake hopped lightly onto the back, the live snake still dangling down to the ground out of his fist. The motorcycle driver hit the gas and lurched forward, taking snake handler with him and they drove off throughout the gate, the man shaking the body of the snake at the hostel boys in one last hurrah-ish goodbye.

I turned to the other girls. “I sometimes can’t believe my life here.” Did that man really just hop on a motorcycle with a 6 foot snake?

After shuddering once more, we turned inside and went to sit down, after agreeing that tonight, we are making the journey to the outdoor bathroom together, armed.

Best,
Cat