Fire and snakes

Sometimes we are so used to living here that it feels anything but exotic. And then sometimes things happen which remind us that we are a long way from Europe!

On Friday while working in the office I smelled smoke. My colleagues and I worked out that there was a fire to the north-east of us, but we didn't think much of it as some farmers in that direction had loaded up their cotton on Thursday, so we assumed they were burning their fields.

Later that morning we realised that what might have once been a controlled fire was no longer anything of the sort. It was now to the north of our compound, and in places the flames were metres high. At one point there was a "whoosh", and I saw smoke billowing up behind our house. I ran out of the office to check how close it was, since I had washing hanging out behind our house, and I really didn't want that catching fire! Fortunately the big flare-up was 100 metres or so away from our compound walls, but the smaller flames were approaching.

By the end of the morning the dry grass to the north and east of our compound was burning. We were very glad we had taken the precaution of having the long plants cut down, so the flames never got too high. My colleagues went to help prevent the fire reaching a black-market petrol "station" near us, and Marc passed water over the wall to them.

I then noticed that the fire had managed to spread under one of our gates - which was easily put out - and had also begun to burn the wooden roof beams of our (disused) chicken coop, which is built into one of the compound walls. This was also put out with water.

With the efforts of my husband, my colleagues and some helpful neighbours, the fire was soon completely under control, and eventually burnt out, except for a large tree trunk in front of our property, which carried on smouldering for another 48 hours.

Then on Sunday,  Marc went over to the little guest/schoolhouse on our property to put some water in the water filter over there. When he was about to get some water in the main room, he suddenly saw a snake gliding away from him, which hid under the kitchen cabinets.

Snakes are not something we have much experience with, unlike most people around here, so Marc immediately called a friend from church. He arrived with another guy within about five minutes, and another five minutes later they had killed the snake! Phew! What a blessing to have helpful friends like them!

A not-very-impressive photo of the fire (well, I could hardly send someone to stand next to it to show the scale!).