Ages ago I had a conversation with my friend at school. She was fortunate enough to have traveled to Germany a couple years ago. She was telling me all about her adventures when she mentioned her unwillingness to go anywhere near water. I asked her to explain, and she did.
Apparently, a local belief is that giant, dangerous snakes live in water and (get this) prey only on black people. They are also capable of speech and will call out a person's name in order to lure them into the water, bite them and drown them. They ignore white people because their skin and hair is too soft for the snakes to grab.
"You? You're fine. You can cross the river," said my friend,"but me? No!"
This might sound completely ridiculous, but given all my free time lately I've taken to going on long walks in the bush and boy, it can be creepy out there. Rest assured though, if I start hearing the wildlife call out my name, I will run right home.
I have no update on the strike, other than that it is still going on. It's been in the local paper, and also on the news. While all the schools are closed, the village is relatively quiet. The calm before the storm, or just eternal calm? Ga ke itse. I'm keeping relatively busy with a new cookbook and the construction of a soccer field with the neighborhood kids. Apparently the big kids have commandeered the field across the road, so we've resorted to building our very own. It's amazing what ten-year-old boys with a lot of free time can do with a few sticks and the saw attachment on a Swiss Army knife (I knew it would come in handy, I just knew it!).
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