Snake Story (1/26/00)

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 A fellow missionary in Costa Rica had to wait years for his “Snake Story”.  It took me less than a year to get one (sorry Ken), but his is better.  Maybe I will have another, more exciting experience at a future time. For now this will have to do.

 

This morning, Chrysti Reeck, our newly arrived missionary nurse, and I had just entered the hospital to do some work in the pharmacy in preparation for the opening of our clinic.  I had forgotten some papers, and retraced our steps outside.  There on the concrete entrance to the hospital was a three-foot snake.  I watched it a while, but it did not move.  If it was dead, I couldn’t believe we would not have seen it upon arriving, but then again, we were talking, and not really looking for snakes.  I tossed a rock at it, but it didn’t move.  I dropped a bigger rock in front of its face, it recoiled quickly, and so did I!

 

Esteben, one of our workers was nearby, so I asked him to tell me if the snake was venomous or not, not wanting to harm a beneficial snake for no reason.  As he approached, the snake struck at him.  He jumped, the snake missed, and Esteben’s boot crushed the snake’s head.  Esteben then said “boa”, which would have made it non-venomous.  I tried to examine the remains of its crushed head, but could not be sure if it had fangs, or if I was seeing broken jawbones.

 

I took him home to show the family, and see if I could identify him on our “snake chart”.  To our eyes, he could have been one of several different snakes, some venomous, some not.  When I showed the chart to the Hondurans at the hospital, they had the same difficulty.  To them, a non-venomous snake is a boa, and a venomous snake is either a “barba amarillo” (yellow beard) or a coral snake. So I have concluded, at least for me, the only safe snake is a dead snake.  I don’t plan on being the Honduran version of “The Crocodile Hunter”.

 

Dave Drozek with,

 

Thoughts from Honduras

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