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October 9, 2004, Something Different, by Jim

Our Beloved Bhuti.

There are so many tasks which must be completed to build a community centre. So many little jobs, which link to other jobs, which result finally in one part of the whole.

I decided I would build a little pad and pump house down by the stream to hold the generator and pump which will provide construction water, and later, water to irrigate the demonstration garden at the centre. It’s a very small project, one which needs only one person to do most of it. So I built a form at home because it’s much easier to build it here and carry it there than to build it there. The stream is in a deep gully, down a steep slope, and why carry anything more than necessary.

When the form was finished, I reached down to pick up the remaining piece of plank, and heard a double hiss, then jerked my hand away as a snake, which I thought was a puff adder, crawled under the board. So, back to Edmonton in summer 2003 when we were deciding whether to bring our two dogs to Underberg with us. We decided not to, first because it was very expensive, second because they have long coats and this is a hot climate, third because African mother dogs teach their pups to avoid snakes, and ours would not have such training. Nevertheless, we fear that our beloved Bhuti will be killed by a snake because he is so curious. Now there was a puff adder under my board, so I went for an axe to kill it. Puff adders are responsible for more snake bites, and deaths, than any other snake in Africa.

When I returned, the snake was gone. I searched very carefully, looking all along the rockery which I had used as my workbench because the plank was too long for the workshop. No snake anywhere to be seen. I left to tell Tim my scary story (Chris and Colleen were away), then returned to look again for the snake, this time accompanied by Bhuti. As I walked up to the rockery, Bhuti jumped up onto it. And then the snake, which must have been there all along, started to crawl between Bhuti’s legs. Bhuti looked off into space. I yelled for him to come, he ignored me. The snake continued to slither between his legs. Finally, Bhuti reluctantly jumped down from the rockery. He didn’t see the snake, he didn’t smell it, he didn’t hear it, he never knew it existed. So much for mothers teaching pups. So much for a dog’s sense of smell, which is 4,000 times more keen than ours. So much for my careful searching for the snake, whose camouflage had prevented me from seeing it. And, so much for fearing that this snake would kill the dog. They seemed to be totally indifferent to each other, and this snake never coiled, never seemed to care that a dog was standing right on top of it.

But it wasn’t a puff adder, as I now saw, it was a night adder. Their venom is slightly toxic, but of no concern to humans, and, I concluded, not dangerous to Bhuti. And they catch things that we would not want around the place. So the snake crawled into a space in the rocks. Live and let live seems to work so well here.

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