Once upon a time, in a land far far away...
I was in one of my favorite hot spots on assignment. Just taking pictures, minding my own business. I have my camera up against my face, and of course that was back in the day before digital so I am conserving my very hard to get film and composing my shots carefully.
A group of men are inching closer and closer, trying to see why I am photographing, practically spread across the road, lying on my stomach in the dust and dirt. Finally one says, not in english by the way, "Excuse me Miss?" I liked him immediately because he called me Miss.
"Excuse me Miss, what are you photographing?"
By this time they had been watching me for a half an hour, maybe more. So I tell them I found some wildlife I've never seen before and I wanted to get it on film, up close.
They decide they are all wildlife experts and they will tell me what it is I am photographing if I could just move sideways for one moment so they could see. So I move slightly to my left and they are almost toppling over each other so they can be the first to tell 'Miss' what wonderful creature she is taking pictures of. After a few seconds of silence, I continue to look through my viewfinder, chatting away to them and asking questions. While my face is glued to my camera, I am not seeing them slowly backing away.
All of a sudden, an older man gets out of a vehicle and starts speaking to me in very broken english. I look up to see him coming towards me and everyone else on the otherside of the road. Their hands all up in the air gesturing wildly. At first the older man is walking, no... striding with force and determination is a more accurate description. Then he is yelling at me to crawl backwards slowly, no rapid movements. I'm thinking what is he going on about, I am only photographing a really colorful worm. It was no bigger than a really long earthworm. No big deal right?
By this time he has reached my side, and with one big stomp, he has ended the life of this adorable little worm. I am looking at him, possibly with confusion written all over my face. He grabs my hand and lifts me off the ground, not letting go of me, he says, very slowly, as if he's talking to an escaped mental patient, "This one is very bad!" and that I was photographing the offspring of one of the most poisonous snakes in the country. I am still confused as everyone knows snakes don't have venom until much later in life and I say as much to him. He grabs me by the elbow and still has my hand in his other grip, and hauls me across the road to where all the others are gabbing madly and pointing at me and the dead baby snake. He stares at me in silence for at least 30 seconds before he could form the sentance. He points about 3 meters down the way from where I was laying, and there, slithering out of the debris on the side of the road, is the adult snake.
This sets all the other locals off in absolute madness as the scramble to get in to the vehicles and shut the doors and windows. My guide comes out of the little tea hut and sees the mass exodus of trucks, cars, and drivers, dirt and dust flying in the air, and looks at me like a stupid foreign girl and asks what I did to make them all run away. The older man who apparently had just saved my life, starts giving my guide the gears about leaving the stupid foreign girl alone for two minutes and look at all the trouble she caused. He grabs my guide's face and points his gaze in the direction of the snake twisting and sliding in the dust. Next thing I know, I'm being shoved into the side of our truck and in the blazing heat with all the windows up... PS no air conditioning!
As we're driving away, I'm watching the older man going back to the snake side of the road with a tree trunk. Really, it was a tree trunk he had whittled and carved into a club. This little skinny man, swings this tree trunk back over his shoulder, and smashes this fully grown snake to smithereens.
Later I learned the skinny snake killer was the owner of the tea hut, and he spent the next three weeks hunting down the rest of the offspring in the debris by the side of the road. "Bad for business", he said.
Well, that's my story, one of them anyways!
Tell your friends and don't forget to check your compass!
Cole
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