Snakes, Kevin Costner and Jillian Estelle read our story, bad english books and two surprises

I want to start off this blog on a positive note because it will take a dark turn (for me-you will probably laugh) later.  This week our story was read by Kevin Costner and Jillian Estelle and was called "Catching the Moon" written by Crystal Hubbard and illustrated by Randy duBurke.  It is the childhood story of Marcenia “Toni Stone” Lyle Alberga who was the first female to play on an all male professional baseball team.  It was a great story and offered me the chance to discuss baseball with the group as well as the determination it takes to break down barriers of gender and race.  An issue that is still all too common here.

(d) the correct answer would make the sentence "We feel smell of carcasses by carcass" 

This week I spent some time addressing some of the errors the teacher's introduce by simply copying the errors found in their textbooks.  It is common to find spelling errors and issues of poor grammar as well as mathematical mistakes in their textbooks.  We have made a plan that before next year, the headmaster, Fredy, and I will go through all the books they use to look for these errors and correct them.  I often have to be careful because I want to correct the UK version of things to USA english, but because their government tests will be based on the UK version I have to let it go.

This week I had two surprise things for me to do:  First is to draw items on the blackboard that were not mathematical shapes.  It appears I impressed the teachers with my ability to draw mathematical shapes like pyramids and tetrahedral.  So they asked me to draw plants and trees on the board.  I am not an artistic person-my brain operates on the logic based processor.  but here was my effort:

Second big artistic type surprise for me was being able to help teach the kids a new song over the last couple of weeks.  I downloaded it from YouTube and then wrote it out for the teacher who does most of the new songs.  We have been working with the kids for two weeks on this song called "The B-I-B-L-E."

So you have been wondering now about the funny to you but not me, dark turn of the blog and most likely guessed it had something to do with the snake part of the title.  First most of you know how I feel about snakes.  I am not a fan.  Having been bitten by a copperhead in high school and having to endure an Anaconda snake crawling across me while lying in wait to attack a compound I have reasons.  Add to that having seen a good friend die from a viper bite, I would prefer not to deal with snakes again.  Unfortunately there are a lot of snakes in Tanzania.

Add all those snakes with issues they have with constructing an air tight building and you can guess where I am heading.  The doors here are not in a frame with weather seals.  In fact it is common to have a gap between the door and the floor/frame to allow for expansion.  My house at the old site had a gap big enough for rats to enter.  The headmaster's house it was about 1 1/2 inches which was perfect to install a pool noodle cut in half.  (yes I bring those over because they make great bucket latrine cushion seats and we have regular toilets here so I don't need them for that).  My current house has only a half centimeter gap.  That is not deep enough to do the pool noodle trick.

So Wednesday afternoon, about an two hours after school ended but well before dark, I am sitting on the day bed in the sitting room when I look down and see snake slide underneath the door into the house.  Now I don't have my shoes on or a stick capable of killing a snake in the house.  So I first threw something at it hoping it would slither back out, but no it moved under the day bed.  Now I have a real problem.  First grab the shoes, hop off the daybed sofa and head to the door.  Once I get my shoes on I head to the storage room to grab a metal pipe to kill it with.  This alerts our day guard/maintenance guy, Hassain, to the issue and he takes off to my house.  Realizing he left without getting anything to kill it with, I grabbed him a stick and joined.

Hassain kills snakes regularly so he took lead.  By this time we saw it in my bedroom so he hoped up on my bed to strike at it.  I covered the door in case it tried to get out and used my stick to move things I store under the bed out of the way and try and get the snake to the edge so he can hit it.  We got it in about 5 minutes time.

To answer everyone's first question it seems, I did not spend time digging out my phone to take a picture of it sliding under my door.  I have checked several sources and it seems to be a stripe bellied sand snake that is "mildly" poisonous.  

To answer the second question, yes I have figured out a way to use the pool noodle to close the gap.  I used some foam mounting tape and mounted the entire half so it drags the floor.  I still have some small gaps but since snakes don't move straight it should prove too difficult for them. 

To answer the third questions, yes every time the wind blows my curtain and it touches my hand I wake up with a start.  I also got a stick for the house like the ones I use on walks thanks to Fredy who feels it is necessary to have one in the house.