Trapped by African Wildlife

It was a typical morning in Africa with Karen, we had got up early with the sun, been down to check the hippos that Karen was studying and were back at the house by breakfast time. I call her place a 'house', in fact Hippo Haven is more than a house, it is beautiful thatched home on the side of the River Turgwe in Zimbabwe, built and sculpted by herself and her able husband Jean.  There is no glass in any of the windows, just lots of frames of mosquito netting so the house is really cool in the heat of the day and filled with light.

Karen and Jean have a lot of cats, and these are kept inside for most of the time to protect them from the African wildlife.  Domestic cats are high up on the snack stakes and they also do not have much bush sense, being a bit soft around the ears when it comes to surviving in the African wilderness.

So there I was sitting inside with the sun streaming into the sitting room, surrounded by cats and contentedly reading my book. The cats were animated and attentively looking out through the mesh of the front door and playing games with each other, hissing, swiping and cavorting along the window ledges.  Arthur, the very large warthog, had come visiting and was munching through pony nuts outside the back door.  Karen often feeds wildlife that come to visit, and Arthur had a special place in her heart.  He came to the back door and was fed on a regular basis, the back door area was his.  The thing was that only Karen was allowed into Arthur's area, anyone else, including Jean, was charged by him, and that is a pretty scary experience.  A large warthog could break your shins, and Arthur certainly fell into that category!

Living where they do, Karen and Jean have a bathroom in their house - minus a toilet, the actual toilet was still the old long drop from when they had camped in the bush.  They did not want to build a sceptic tank, so the toilet was not part of the house.  And at this point I needed the loo.

I am not too sure how I managed to escape near death, but I am alive and kicking today.  As I opened the front door and headed right towards the long drop, my sixth sense kicked in.  I glanced back over my shoulder to the left, and there, only 2m away from me, was a Mozambique spitting cobra.  It was standing at about chest height, its hood was out and it was not best pleased.  All this information I took in at record speed and my brain engaged into retreat mode.  I must have looked like Scooby Doo, I am sure that I retreated in mid air, whilst doing those circular motions with my legs, and I slammed the door shut, making sure that all the cats were safe inside.

"Karen, there is a large snake outside the front door, and its not too happy", I yelled.

I peered out of the front door and the snake was still there, still looking rather hacked off with life.  The cats were not helping the situation by hissing through the netting and agitating the snake into an even worse mood that is already was in. We struggled to keep the cats away from the windows, the cobra may have been able to spit its venom through the netting, who knows, I was not really ready to find out.

It was then that I realised my dilemma, I need the toilet but I could not go to the long drop out of the front door for fear of meeting the cobra (it was a big one) and I could not leave the house by the back door because of Arthur.  I weighed up blindness with broken shins, and came to the conclusion that neither was an attractive option.

I could not really hold on for long, and from past experiences this wildlife situation might be around for a while. I came up with an alternative, it was the only option.

"Karen, I am going to have a pee in your bath."