Culeba vs Pollito

I´v done ben told dat my speling n gramer ain´t prefect so I´s ben extra carful to right dis entry prefect.

The title of this entry in English is ´Snake vs Baby Chicken.´ Unfortunately, the outcome of this death match did not go quite as planned. Let me start with a little background info. I like snakes. This of course is baffling to every Panamanian since they are absolutely terrified of snakes. I´m hoping to change their undeserved reputation of being deadly monsters by doing really crazy things... like picking up completely harmless snakes without them killing me. Impossible you say. Well so does every Panamanian. But somehow I´m still alive after handling several snakes not physically capable of harming me. I´m trying to teach the kids that most snakes are harmless. I try to tell adults too, but they´ve got it ingrained in their brains that every snake is evil. So I decided to have a cage built and capture a small boa to use for youth education. I thought the cage would be ready before finding the snake, but as it turned out the snake came first. I put him in a makeshift cardboard box cage until the real cage was ready. Snakes have to eat and the only readily available food is small chickens. Despite my families pleas not to kill a baby chicken, I bought one and put it in the cage. The next morning the chicken was dead... because he got too cold at night, not from being eaten. And the snake... was not in the cage. Apparently, duct tape and cardboard do not restrain snakes very well. My family, especially my host sister, were not too happy with a live snake loose in the house. I looked all over my room and couldn´t find him, so I told the family that he was most likely in one of their rooms.

On the subject of snakes, my host grandmother told me a very interesting story the other day. Apparently, and I did not no this, bad things are happening all over the world and Christ is coming very soon. I had the pleasure of listening to this very fascinating story for over an hour while trying to eat lunch. All I can say is REPENT SINNERS!!! Anyways, she also told me about how her brother was saved from a 3 headed snake when 2 angles appeared at his side and drove it away. I don´t know if she knew that I wasn´t religious or that I planned to keep a snake as a pet in the house, but figured it best not to bring it up. I just sat there and nodded my head every once in a while, but I like to think that my facial expression said something like ´you are nuts, please leave me alone and let me eat my lunch.´

I had my big community meeting with the head of my program yesterday. Since we were supposed to discuss what I was to be doing in the community for the next couple years, you would think there might be a big turn out, especially since I invited every organization, commitee, and church in the community. The meeting was scheduled for 4pm. At 5:00 3 people had shown up. When we finally started at about 5:45 there were 6 people. I wasn´t upset though. This is Panama, I expect this stuff now. Regardless of the lack of participants, the meeting went pretty well.

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