The 'Seven Stepper'

On a recent trip, I had an interesting snake encounter. I was waiting for the guys I was with to get back into the pickup when I looked out of the passenger window. There on the grass only a few feet away was an enormous black mamba, looking very calm, coiled in a lazy circle with its head held up in the centre.

I recognised it at once by its supercilious smile as it carefully surveyed the scene. I shouted that there was a ‘really bad’ snake and everyone should get into the pickup. Just as I thought I should take a photo it started to slither into a hole in a dead tree trunk whilst its tail began to thrash around angrily.



I wondered what would happen next. Then we saw that there was a herd of cattle coming through the trees towards us. Someone shouted at the moran herders to warn them. Straight away they came towards us picking up small rocks and circling warily round the dead tree trunk. Then the one nearest the car saw the head appear out of the hole and start to go for him. He immediately chopped down onto the snake’s back with his long-bladed spear. The snake started to writhe around and I saw the spear was bent so he quickly changed to using his herding stick.




(What I particularly love about this photo is that he kept hold of his umbrella, spear and water bottle in the other hand throughout the process! That’s one cool warrior in my book!)

The other moran came from the other direction and joined the fray.



It was all over in a very short time and the snake was lifted into the air and displayed as truly dead. It was about 7 feet long and about 3-4 inches across at its thickest!



We left them to hoist the body into a tree for the birds and drove on with many excited comments about mambas. The immediate instinct here is to kill snakes whether they are venomous or not. We often find ourselves defending them and begging people to leave them be, especially if they are obviously completely harmless like a common house snake. However, this one was a killer and could have attacked the herd of cattle so I left them to do what they had to do. The snake had seemed oddly calm to start with and the others thought that it had eaten something recently. However, it was definitely angry and coming towards the moran when he struck it.

They call the black mamba ‘the seven step snake’ as the poison is so potent that you only have seven steps of life left. They are also very quick and aggressive snakes and can bite repeatedly, easily able to kill several full grown cattle in one attack.

Then the stories started......a man in South Africa had driven over one and it had caught onto the chassis of the car and held on to the running board until he reached his hotel. As he got out of the car it bit him and he died.....

And a friend, driving along in his pick up full of people, stopped to look at one on the side of the road. It went for them, the passengers leapt up onto the roof bars, our friend slammed the cab window shut, the black mamba slithered up under the bonnet and they had no choice but to continue their journey. Upon arrival, they gathered round the car armed with sticks, lifted the bonnet carefully with a VERY long stick and there it was curled up on the engine!

The Hatted One

I have been trying to do a deal with my neighbour, a small Mwarusha man. He has a long thin piece of land that extends into my plot and is bound by it on three sides and I am suggesting a ‘like for like’ swap to make two blocks of land, both of which would be more easily managed and more saleable. As always we spoke in Kiswahili.



I met him this morning down by my fence. After harvest our neighbours, and especially this particular one, just let their animals roam anywhere eating the leftovers. The problem is that I am trying to preserve the stover for a mulch cover to increase soil water retention and fertility. His goats, sheep and cows are hungry and have other ideas when they see all this fodder lying around after harvest.

I asked if he had spoken with the rest of the boma. He said that he had taken my message to them and that the young men had refused my idea but had another idea. They want me to buy a small piece of their plot, about 20 paces long, for 5 million shillings - almost ten times the going rate! I reminded him that I had said categorically there would be no exchange of money. I don’t have any and the deal is already mutually beneficial. He continued to reiterate their point of view and in desperation I said,

“Do you understand why I suggested this deal?”

He looked at me surprised and a little bemused. I took him by the sleeve and said,

“Ok you are now Makofia (my local name which means the ‘hatted one’)and I am Nagole”. I drew him to where I was standing and I went and stood where he had been standing.



“Ok I said why do you want to do this deal?”

“I don’t,” he said. “You came to me first.”

“No,” I said. “You are me and I am you. So you have to tell me why I wanted to exchange this piece of land.” He looked bemused again but I persisted thinking that the penny would drop very shortly if I could convincingly play out my/his part.

“So Makofia, why do you want to exchange this land that you bought off me? Do you think that it is no good?” I said.

He laughed and said,

“I don’t know you bought it off me and it was alright then.”

“No, no”, I said. “I am Nagole.” At which point he roared with laughter.

In desperation I noticed he was wearing a most ridiculous woolly hat so I stepped forward and took it off his head and replaced it with my Aukubra and put his multi coloured woolly on my head. He looked startled and then stared at me quizzically for a moment. I let the full import of what I had done sink in and started again.



“Ok Makofia,” I said. “Why do you want to swap this piece of land that you bought off me last year?”

He paused and I could see that something was going on inside and he was imperceptibly readjusting his perspective. Then he answered slowly,

“Because your cows and sheep keep coming onto my land and eating my crops.”

“Yes,” I cried triumphantly, throwing my arms in the air. “That’s why I want to swap the land. Why can’t you get them to agree to it?”

“They are young and want money”, he said. “But I will go back and talk with them.”

“Ok then I will wait for you to come back to me, now give me back my hat.”

“Oh no, you gave it to me. I want to keep it.” He dodged my outstretched hand.

“What! No way,” I laughed. “Here you take your woolly hat,” and I lunged at him and grabbed my hat off his head as he moved to run off.

We laughed and bade each other farewell.

“What a cheek,” I thought to myself. “He was trying to play me all along!”

The Three Calf Bet

After a recent trip to a new place and a new challenge Graham writes of his drive home:

As we packed up camp we began discussing the way back. Apparently there was an old road down the other side of the mountain that would save about 5 or 6 hours driving time – a very tempting idea.

A young moran came and asked us to take a very sick old man down to hospital. I asked him if we were going this ‘quicker’ way would he still want us to take the old man. He said he would which I took to mean that the road wasn’t bad enough to be a risk to his life. We found him lying in an old boma next to the road after an hour’s driving – he was not well at all and was in considerable pain all over. We took out our mattresses and made a bed for him with a couple of bolsters so that he was sitting in the back like a king.

Many of the young moran on the road warned us that we would never make it through the road ahead. Not even a motorbike could get through now they said as it was washed away. In the end, I bet a particularly fervent young moran a calf that we could get through. Two others said that they would also bet a calf, making the prize for success three calves. Always glad of a challenge I accepted although secretly I did wonder......



The road looked deceptively harmless but vegetation disguised deep gullies and sudden drops where the road had washed out. Our first problem was a washout in the middle of the track bound by hedges on either side blocking all other options. We dug and filled holes and tried it. The ground started to collapse as I drove across the gulley and I had to reverse quickly. I wondered again if this was stupid but also thought we may have reached the point of no return already. A couple working in the fields nearby helped us and warned us it was much worse ahead but as we got through I felt more encouraged.

The dirt track now turned into a very rough rocky road and sloped steeply downwards. We walked the track and worked out a route, filled holes and moved the larger rocks. I was now quite calm about us going on and looking forward to the three calves. We wobbled and lurched down the hill, filling holes in on the way with one man guiding me from in front and another organising passers by to help.



Round a couple of bends we came across a huge problem where the road had been washed right out with a twenty foot fall onto some large boulders below. The only viable option was to cut a deep ditch out of the hillside above that the top tyres would lock into and stop the car from slipping away. The work progressed slowly as the slope was pretty steep but a woman kindly cooked chai for us to keep us going.



No one else seemed to understand the physics of Landrovers and there was a fair amount of goading to try this and that but I had the upper hand as the vehicle was mine and I was behind the wheel! We carried on with much banter, exhortations and heavy sweating.

After several failed and rather alarming attempts, I tried again but needed people to push the back end up hill. Many refused as they thought that they would be squashed if it rolled. However, I managed to encourage enough to push with others sitting on the topside of the pickup. Now the rear tyre was in the ditch and things looked good, but when they told me to keep going beyond where they had dug, it all went pear-shaped again and I ended up at a precarious angle just above the washout, holding onto the passenger’s side doorpost to keep myself on a level!

(No photo of this bit as I was holding on for dear life!)

More digging and the afternoon wore on. It took a lot of leading by example to persuade those who were flagging to keep digging as we were all pretty exhausted. My fear was that the last few metres would be too steep and as I was turning down the slope to rejoin the road the Landrover would tip over. And in fact, as I rushed down towards the road the topside front wheel started to lift and was only just stopped by the other front wheel meeting the flat surface of the road and pushing the vehicle level again. The spring gave a loud bang as it bent back into shape which made it all the more dramatic.

Everyone was happy and after all that were saying how easy it had been! I think I was the only one who knew how dodgy it had really been.

We now had a pickup full of people wanting a lift to the next village which was useful when we met the next obstacle which was a very deep but narrow washout that someone had carefully camouflaged with sticks - and I drove straight into it! Luckily only the front driver’s side wheel had gone in but there wasn’t much to stop the car going on down the gulley. With plenty of help on board, the front of the vehicle was lifted out and we were soon well on our way again.

THEN the two morani who were accompanying the old man told us that the track had been cursed by the witch doctors so that strangers wouldn’t have access to their land – now they told me! I’m happy to say that despite it all, the old man arrived safely at a better hospital at the end of this road than he would have done at the end of the longer road.



The views across the plains were spectacular. Sometimes I look at views like these and get butterflies in my stomach. The grand scale of the wilderness with no sign of man. Below us the biscuit brown plains stretched away into the distance, broken up with big seas of yellow grass. To the left were a line of progressively smaller rounded hills, swooping down from the heights of a nearby mountain, each one haloed in a dust haze. It was a magical light show of both detail and grandeur with so many hues blended into one great tapestry that was a feast for the eyes and refreshed the soul.

Enthusiasm for School

Monika lives in the ‘middle of nowhere’ in very harsh, dry and dusty conditions. Her husband, who works in a town 150 miles away, had three wives but two were unable to cope with such harsh living conditions and have left. Monika has ten children and not only accepts her lot, but LIVES her life, with an incredible grace.



It is law in Tanzania that every child should receive primary education although some slip through the net due to distances from schools. Not Monika’s children. They leave home at 4am in the dark and, joining other friends along the way, they walk until they arrive at school at 8am. Leaving school at 1pm they arrive home just before darkness falls again.



The road to school with wildebeest running across the background (if you look carefully!).