One Girl and a Big World

___ Cobra and I – A Short Story ___

Welcome back my dear reader!

I am officially done with the school year! Now I have a nice summer ahead of me and plenty of time to write. Today’s post will be a travel story about a snake and I… I know, so fun!

First, we must start with the necessary background for this story.

Location: Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya.

Date: July, 2017.

Time: 2:00 PM East Africa Time.

In July of 2017, my family was on a safari trip in Kenya. At this point in our story, we were nearing the end of our trip. The way this safari worked was that we would wake up early, see the animals, come back for lunch and rest (this was also done because it was too hot for the animals so they would most likely be hidden from the human view anyway), and then at around 3pm, we would embark once again on our mission to catch a glimpse of God’s beautiful Creation.

Since it was 2pm at the time this story takes place, my family was at the camp resting after lunch. My parents took a nap, my brother was drawing in his journal, and I was in the lounge tent since I hate both naps and being in a room with someone taking a nap (I’m weird but I cannot stand the silence that comes with someone else napping). In the lounge, there were other tourists reading books, cleaning their cameras, or just talking and passing the time.

I had picked up a book about Africa and was just looking through it when all of a sudden, there was a high-pitched scream that scared the socks off of me. I looked behind me to see an American woman standing on a couch terrified and pointing to something I could not see. People began trying to see what the situation was and some native workers and the camp manager came over to see what was so wrong.

The woman then begins shouting, “snake!” “snake!”

Now I am deathly afraid of all types of snakes. I do not like them one bit. They literally haunt my dreams sometimes. But in this case, the woman’s fear was truly genuine and guided. This was because the snake was not only just SOME snake, but it was a Black Spitting Cobra that had slithered up the wooden steps into the lounge tent, had spread the hood of its head out, and was exposing its spiked tongue for everyone to see. This snake is so deadly that when the natives saw it, they wanted to kill it immediately. However, it is illegal to kill animals if they are within a Kenyan national reserve.

Now, the Black Spitting Cobra shoots deadly venom into its victims eyes and face to neutralize it. The venom is strong enough to cause blinding in the eyes. So how were we going to get rid of this snake if it could not be killed? The camp manager had to tell the natives to put down their spears and instead picked up large heavy books and began slamming them onto the floor. This caused vibrations that the snake was able to feel and encouraged it to move away from the tent area. The manager guided the snake away by continually slamming books to deter it.

So how were the other tourists and I reacting to the snake? Well, everyone had stood up in a panic and backed away as far as they could from the snake. And as silly as it may sound, the one thought running through my brain was, “DO NOT LOOK AT IT!” “DO NOT LOOK AT IT!” The American woman who had originally yelled was still panicking on top of her couch, which looking back now was a really funny sight to behold.

After the manager had driven the snake away through the use of vibrations, I ran off to go tell my parents what had just happened. I burst through our family tent, find my parents awake, and spit out, “A Black Spitting Cobra slid into the lounge tent! I ALMOST DIED!” (A little dramatic? Maybe, but I DO NOT LIKE SNAKES). My mother responded to my near-death experience with, “And you didn’t get a picture?!?”

I’ll be honest, few comments render me absolutely speechless, but that one did for several moments. “MOM, WHY WOULD I THINK ABOUT GETTING A PICTURE WHEN THE NATIVES CONSIDER THIS SNAKE SO DEADLY THEY WERE ABOUT TO BREAK THE LAW AND RUN IT THROUGH WITH THEIR SPEARS!?!”

“Ay, Sofia. It was just a snake. Go back and see if you can find it and take a picture.” Honestly, I broke down laughing at that point. I just shook my head and laughed. There was no way I was going back to find that snake, but at the same time, my mother’s completely nonchalant comment was pretty hilarious.

Needless to say, that night when all the tourists had dinner together, I had a pretty funny story for the rest of the tourists who had not been in the lounge tent. I did also find out that the majority of the tourists went back to their tents that night and tripled checked to make sure there was no Black Spitting Cobra under their bed… #traumatized.

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