Check for Black Mambas under the Bed

(This is from a while back.  I had not had the chance to upload it.)

The title to this post reflects a joke Rashel and I had one day after I spent some time at the water pump house in ARDA.  Ok, it was more my joke than Rashel’s because she did not find it funny initially.  When Mark Hatfield, Sub-Saharan Africa Director for Baptist Global Response, was in town, we went to Arda to educate me on the water system that supplies Sanyati.  There we met the pump operator, Zekia Mamvura.  He showed us the pump and the storage tank where water is pumped from the Munyati River before it is pumped on to the mission center tanks.  After getting the tour, Zekia shared with us his experience with Black Mamba in that area.  Last November, they had killed a mamba with a very long stick.  It was trying to get into the pump house and was being aggressive.  Apparently, Zekia and the others had made the snake mad and it was out to get them.  They had to gang up on it and kill it with some very long sticks.  I told him that I have killed rattlesnakes back in Texas with a shovel.  He looked at me with surprise and said a shovel is too short to kill a mamba.  Later, I read up about how a black mamba is very fast moving, often faster than you can run, and can strike in any direction.  The article said that it usually takes many people to kill a mamba so I was starting to understand Zekia’s surprise when I mentioned killing a snake with a shovel.  Zekia went on to say that there were three black mambas in the area around the pump house.  They had killed one that was about 2 meters long and the other two have been seen in small patches of trees on opposite sides of the storage tank.  When he said that I asked, “The same trees we were just standing under?”  He said yes.  Wow!!!  I would have liked to known that before I stood there.  He went on to share some personalities of each mamba that still roamed the area.  The one where we had stood sometimes climbs in the trees and the other stayed on the ground.  The tree climber regularly came out to sun in a certain spot.

Ok, I will get back to the joke that day.  When I came home, Rashel shared that Patience, who is in charge of the house we are staying in, told her that they once found a black mamba in the bedroom where we sleep.  That instantly got my attention, a black mamba, one of the most deadly snakes in the world was found in the house where we are living.  That was a little too much to handle, so being a true man, I had to make a joke out of it to avoid the reality that I was facing.  So I said, “You better check under the beds for black mambas before we go to sleep.”  Rashel initially did not laugh but after a while she did come around…at least partly.  The next day, we asked Patience for more details and much to our relief she clarified that it was NOT a black mamba that was found in the house. 

Moving to Africa brings on many unknowns.  We are learning as we go and some things are frightening at first because we just don’t know what to expect.  We have to depend on the Lord to guide us and walk us through it.  He is faithful and has watched over us.