All Creatures Great and Senegal

(Other titles: Wild Things; Woman vs. Wild; Where the Wild Things Are...)

12/3/08

Snake Peak:
I was standing with my bike outside Alexa's old cpompound, greeting her bengure and unknowingly standing a foot away from a snake coiled on a tree. "Hadiatou, come here!" They hissed about 5 times before I responded. I thought they just wanted me to sit with them so I was protesting, no, IO really should be getting home... then they pointed. I moved and hid behind neene Sow. Stick beating proceeded until thje serpent was no more. Then they just made fun of me. Fair enough!

Le Deuxieme Snake:
Mbodi no ga! A snake is here! What other words can get people moving so fast? At this point I'd reached the Dinde Felo disponsaire (Badji's) part of my journey and was awaiting Awesome Food. Then a kid comes in yelling that. I didn't even understand him but followed everyone else's lead and ran. I thopught it was for a medical emergency, actually, and maybe I could help! Wrong.
This snake was HUGE (green Mamba?) and WAY faster than I knew snakes could be-- like soccer ball-fast. I did not need top be told 5 times to move. In fact, I almost knocked over a small child in my haste to flee, 6 yards farther than everyone else. I wish I could say I'd been heroic and picked up the child or something, but he was fine. Everyone was running around, throwing rocks, weilding sticks. The sounds of their screams and the deaf guy's screams (I specify because his seemed more purely panicky and eerie) scared me the most. I don't know what it says about me that nothing puts more fear in me than other people's screams, but I don't care as long as I don't get nakiied by a snake.
In the end it was Hawa, maker of Amazing Food/ maid, who beat the snake the most and delivered its final blows. I watched in awe of her bravery as I cowered around the corner. She said she'd only killed 4 or 5. I wonder if she means This Year?
The snake's tail shuddered right before it completely died, as if it had a rattle it was trying to shake.

Dinosaur in the Douche:
Since the previous occurence, I'd been a little jumpy with critters. The mouse in my hut didn't help. When I went to my douche, (remember, this is what we call bathrooms/ holes in the ground) I thought I'd just... check. I shone my flashlight down. Sure enough, a reptillian coil. You've got to be kidding me. Three in one day? But no, I followed up the coil and saw it was a GIANT TAIL attached to sizeable lower legs. It looked like an alligator, logic told me in was a monitor lizard, and so I decided it was a dinosaur.
I made my way to my brothers, casually as can be. I picked the oldest, told him I had a question, and asked him to follow me. I really just wanted to know what it was-- it couldn't do anything from down there anyway. Instead we commenced in a multi-hour douche party.
Picture at least 5 boys holding flashlights standing around my dressed-up imam dad in my douche. They are trying to spear the doucheness monster with a homemade taped-up bamboo pole. The pointed end is getting covered in more and more fecal matter. When they bring it out, everyone has to scatter away so they don't come in contact with Hadiatou's feces. The dinosaur evades its point. I still have to pee.
It was so bizarre I remember wondering if I could possibly have ever been through a weirder experience. That might be it!
I left the boys to their potty-prodding to eat my 2nd dinner (we have food now.) When I went to bed, I implored they stop until morning, but the brother I initially approached said, "No, it's gpoing to die NOW;" I found this way more endearing than annoying so I left them to their shouting and held in my waste materials.
The "sagariwal" saga ended with quickly-travelling screams, stampeding feet, and the sounds of beating. I don't know how they got it out but it's not going anywhere now!