Snake Alert

Some days something can happen that turns a 'normal' day into a day to remember and today was such a day.

I was in my office diligently working through the financial reports for October and needed to check something with Tresor, the finance officer. I walked out of my office and around the corner towards the area where Tresor has his desk and there, slithering away from me along the floor, was a snake.

Tresor was not at his desk so I called out to Justine, who sits in the next office: 'Justine, un serpent'. She came into the office, took one look at the snake and went to get Albert to come and take a photograph! I can't say that was top of my priority list at the time...

We then summoned Luc, the guard, who came armed with a large metal pipe and a machete and proceeded to bash the snake with the metal pipe. I was somewhat concerned as the snake writhed about in both anger and agony that Luc was only wearing flip-flops on his feet and that the snake might decide to retaliate but I needn't have worried as Luc is clearly well-practised in snake-killings. Within a few minutes the snake was dead and had been thrown over the fence outside and all that was left were its blood and entrails on the office floor.

I have no idea what kind of snake it was - it was about 60cms long, quite thin and a green-brown colour. The Chadian view of snakes is that they are all 'tres dangereux', which in the absence of any other information seems a pretty good stance to take.