Cobra

The only snake that I encountered that was still inside its skin was a spitting cobra.  That was more excitement than I really wanted as the spitting cobra is also a lethally venomous snake  Unlike the mamba, it can spit poison at its prey and hit the eyes up to 30 feet away, or so I was told.

I had been living in the village of Bafata for about a year and had volunteered to host a new Peace Corps volunteer.  During training, the new volunteers stay with an existing volunteer for a week to get an idea of what living in a remote African village is like.  The idea is to weed out folks who don't realize what they're getting in to.  On our program, we lost nearly 60% of our volunteers at that point.  I don't think that later groups had quite that attrition rate, but some folks always decided they couldn't take it, and left.

I no longer remember the fellow's name who came to stay with me, but he was a nice young man in his 20s, eager to save the world.  I wanted to show him how the villagers and I planned and carried out a project, so we had decided that we would put a new concrete apron around one of the village wells while he was there.  The apron is the area immediately surrounding the well.  The villagers had simply dug out the space, put in a lot of ironwood and other branches, then filled it in.  Of course, the area was constantly muddy and the wood tended to rot.  Not very sanitary for drinking water.

As a first step, the villagers started digging up the existing dirt and branches, when they ran into a problem.  I was explaining the facts of life in the village to the new kid when the shouting started.  I explained to him that they were excited because they had uncovered a snake.  We walked closer and saw a jet black, triangular piece of snake about a foot long coming out of the mud.  I told him that this was a spitting cobra, easily identifiable by its color and shape, and judging from the fact that it was about as thick as my thigh, it was a big one.  The villagers were rushing off to get spears to kill it.  I suggested that we might want to back off a bit.  When they started spearing it, it was bound to get mad and fight back.

A spitting cobra will flare its hood just before spitting, so there is some warning.  I told the new kid that if he saw that happen, he should cover his eyes and look away.  The poison that it spits doesn't kill, but it will scar the corneas permanently and cause blindness.

The villagers started spearing the snake with vigor.  It came boiling and seething up from its cool, damp resting place, furious at this intrusion.  It stood straight up, looked me in the eye and flared its hood.

Why me?  I have no idea.  Did I turn away?  Hide my eyes?  Nope.  I stared at it like a deer in the headlights.  Distantly, I heard one of the villagers yell in Mandinka, "It's going to spit."  Just as I saw its tongue flick (meaning that it was spitting,) I was tackled at the knees by one of the village teens.  He had seen that I was apparently mesmerized by the snake and decided that it just wouldn't do to have the village white man blinded like that!

It was embarrassing, to say the least.  I got up, dusted myself off and explained, "I just wanted to show you what could happen if you don't look away.  Next time you run into one of those, you'll know."  He nodded seriously, unable to figure out whether I was joking.