Scariest Snake Story Ever!

Earlier this month we went for a walk to the neighboring town of El Toro, where some of our students live.  We stopped by the house of two sisters in eighth grade, where we met their family.  There are nine siblings in the family - an older brother and eight younger sisters!  The sisters were quite shy, hanging back in the doorway while we sat on the front porch and conversed with the brother and father.  The father told us an amazing story about his encounter with an "equis" (X) snake, also known as the fer-de-lance.  The snakes have an "X" pattern on their back, hence the name.  These snakes are one of the most poisonous there are.  If you don't get the proper serum within a few hours, it can be fatal.

Plinio, the father, told us that he was up in the hills one day about three years ago, clearing underbrush with a machete.  As he was chopping away, he accidentally chopped a five-foot "equis" in half.  This was enough to make the snake furious, but not enough to kill him right away.  With his remaining strength, the snake twisted around and bit Plinio on the foot.  The teeth went right through his shoe.  The teeth were so sharp that Plinio said he hardly felt a thing.  The snake, sensing its imminent death, unloaded all of its venom at once.  Usually a snake will keep some in reserve in case it needs to attack again, but not this time.  In less than a minute, an intense pain rushed through Plinio's whole body, and he fell to the ground.  There was only one other person with him, and they knew that they had to get him to a doctor soon.  Plinio managed to hobble home with the help of his friend, and soon he was in the ambulance headed down the mountain.  His lower body began to swell up, all the way from his foot to his abdomen.  They arrived at Las Minas, the nearest town, only to find out that the health center was out of the serum he needed.  They sped off to the next town, Ocú, where there was a hospital.  They were out, too.  Time was running out as they headed to a third town with the same result.  Finally they arrived at the provincial capital Chitré, where the main hospital had the serum.  It was 11pm by that time, nine hours after he had been bitten.  By that time he was unconscious, and his lower body was swollen to twice its normal size.

 Plinio must be a pretty tough guy, because they say that if you don't get the serum within six or seven hours, you are in serious trouble.  It took several months, but Plinio made a complete recovery.  He said that for a very long time he couldn't straighten out his leg, but eventually he was back to normal.   The most amazing thing, though, was that after telling us this whole story, Plinio added that that was the third time he had been bitten by an equis!  We didn't dare ask for the story of the other incidents, if only to spare his family from having to hear Plinio retell things yet again.  We got the feeling that they had heard him tell his snake stories quite often over the past few years.

Plinio left us with a final word of advice:  "If you´re going to kill an equis with a machete, make sure you chop it right behind the head so he can´t go after you with half his body."  I doubt that we will forget that!

On a happier note, the neighborhood kids have been coming around to our house a lot.  They play lots of games on our front porch.  We were lucky to receive several card games from a former Peace Corps volunteer during the celebration in June of the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps.  There are many of the standard games, like Uno, Old Maid, and Crazy Eights, which they like a lot.  We have also taught them The Great Dalmuti.  Their favorite, though, is a memory game with 50 cards, each card having a beautiful drawing of a rain forest animal, like a macaw, an anteater, or a quetzal.  These are all animals that they know of here in Panama, and the game is much more interesting than using a normal deck of playing cards.

The rain forest animal cards

Playing the game

They also love to imitate what they see on TV.  Here you see two girls giving their version of "Dancing with the Stars"  It is hilarious to watch them.

Yeimys (grade 5) spins with Alexandra (K) during their performance

As much as the kids like card games and dancing, a new activity, best described as "porch sliding rope swinging mania", has taken over.  The kids now want to do nothing else when they come over.  We have two hammocks on the front porch, but when it rains we take them in, leaving the ropes hanging.  The kids discovered that the ropes and a wet porch are the perfect combination for some sliding fun.  We added wooden handles for a better grip.  These young kids can get quite acrobatic!

Click here to see these kids in action.  We especially like the sliding dismount!  Steve resisted, but eventually joined in.  See him here.

The outside of our house has become quite the spider colony.  We have over a dozen of these big spiders, called Golden Orb Weavers after their yellow webs. They look scary, but they don't bother us.  They certainly help keep down the insect population.  Whenever Heather catches a fly, she feeds it to the spider living outside the bathroom window.  We don't need a screen with this web outside the window.

Mother and daughter keep the flies out

A few years ago, Peace Corps volunteers developed a program for teenagers to help them to set goals for the future and make plans to achieve those goals.  Much of this involves encouraging them to continue with their education and to put off having kids until they are older.  Teenage pregnancy is quite prevalent here, especially in rural areas. We teach them how to avoid STI's and unwanted pregnancy.  We and our fellow Peace Corps friends have given these one-day workshops to the eighth and ninth graders here in Chepo.  We plan to do the seventh graders in October.

Nico and Steve explain how not to use a condom

Students act out the immune system under attack by HIV

Steve is on the board of the Gender and Development (GAD) committee, which is in charge of developing materials for the talks described above.  There are also workshops for adults on various health issues.  Recently the board met for a weekend retreat in the tourist town of Santa Fe, in the province of Veraguas, where they revised the materials for the various workshops and planned youth camps for "summer" vacation in January.

Chepo is in the forest preserve of El Montuoso and so is host to lots of government agencies who come to do environmental projects.  This past Wednesday one agency came with 500 seedlings of various types.  Students, teachers, and manual workers at the school pitched in to plant them all in one morning.  Even our two local policemen took part.

It is corn season now in Chepo.  A very popular thing to do with "new" (soft) corn, is to make bollos.  Each corn cob is scraped clean, and the corn is ground up.  The resulting dough is mixed with butter and wrapped in corn husks so that it is the same shape as a corn cob.  It is then boiled and eaten.  Sometimes it tastes really good, and sometimes not so good, depending on who makes it.

Two generations of bollo makers

That's it for now!

Steve and Heather