I came out of our room looking for Jessica, she had just been in the kitchen and now I couldn't find her. It was Tuesday, which for the girls on my team means, Beauty from the Ashes or the older women's group. We don't have enough chairs for all of the women so many of us sit on extra mattresses or the floor. In preparation the main room was being swept a few moments before and the women were all waiting patiently outside. I motioned for the women to come inside still scanning the grounds for Jessica. Where could she have gotten off to?? I asked our housekeeper Phindile if she had seen where Jess had gone (when we can pay someone and give them a job we do, so she cleans our house three times a week for R120). "Jess is out front", she said, motioning towards the porch where we have church and many kids play. ‘Great Jess, you know women's group is about to start, what the heck are you doing?' I thought to myself.

I found her stabbing a kitchen knife through the slats on the porch outside our room. Either she or some of the kids had found an inyoka (pronounced in-yoga). That's siSwati for snake. It's front half was pinned under parts of the foundation. In southern Africa, most snakes are feared and for good reason. Where as in the states there are only four kinds of venomous serpents, here there are many and most you find are considered dangerous. I went inside to go get Bryan. He excitedly jumped up and followed me to the porch so that he could kill it. Sorry Steve Irwin and all snake lovers, the venomous kind don't get to live in these parts where they are likely to strike a child. Bryan eventually pulled it up onto the porch so he could cut off the head, then burn the body (Jess had killed it by this point). I was already inside with the women but Jess got a video of it.

 After I watched the video I went to get my guide book on snakes of Southern Africa. Yes, I have guide book for them. The Swazis kept calling it a spitting cobra but I just wanted to make sure since snakes are commonly mistaken for others. They were certainly correct, a Mozambique spitting cobra to be exact. The snakes are pretty venomous, but not very aggressive; I guess that's why it was trying to hide under the porch. Could have been worse, could have been a black mamba!