MAMBA ! ! ! ! ALL EXPATRIATE AFRICAN WOGS UNDERSTAND

These people in Swaziland are amazing. I grew up in Africa, and one of the most terrifying cries to hear is someone yelling, "MAMBA"!

Where I live in Tanzania and Kenya, we have the black and the green mamba, and both were deadly of course. We did not see nearly as many as these people do in South Africa.



Please remember that fully two thirds of the people bitten by poisonous snakes were trying to kill them. In the US the rattle snake has a limited striking distance, but he has long fangs. In Australia there are many poisonous snakes, but they have short fangs which does reduce the seriousness of strikes where any clothing is worn. But, the Aussie snakes are very deadly.

If you want to be prepared for snake bite, research the common idea of suction after a snake bite. The venom flows through the lymph system, not the blood system. So, bleeding is suspect at best. A special stretch bandage is preferred which is available online.

Brand name, Setopress.

INSTRUCTION FOR USE

SECOND SITE

I bought a suction device that was highly recommended, but later I read research from Australia and from California that found it only drew out 2% of the venom. The sales pitch claims up to 80%. The research made me very skeptical, so we have the pressure bandage and the suction device. If you can get to a hospital in reasonable time, I would strongly suggest bypassing the suction method and apply the pressure bandage and go straight to ER.

Reviews on Amazon and elsewhere are not from people who were bitten and used the suction device. They are from people who bought it and were impressed by the cleverness and ease of use. So was I, but I had to admit that and decide to go with the research.

If you are bitten, call for help, and try not to panic or run or rub the limb.  That will only move the poison to be absorbed faster. In the US wear snake chaps when wandering in the woods or working there. In Africa the chaps would help, but the mambas and cobras often strike high.

Keep watching.

THE BUMS WIN

The police, city employees, and school teachers of Trenton, New Jersey, were down to their last wipe the other day. 

The Health Department, the other day, ordered the city to shut down all public buildings when the toilet paper ran out. It seems that the budget will not handle the bottom line of modern civilization. 

There is the odor of crisis in the air. 


But, you will be pleased to know that PETA, the animal rights people, have come from behind and offered a six month supply of TP if their selected message can be printed on it. The city mayor was very pleased to accept the offer and supply all city offices with the PETA TP.


The message reads, 

"Slaughterhouses are so filthy that more than half of all meat is contaminated with fecal bacteria." 

This seems to be a very good concept, for it solves two things-- 

One, exposing this fact may result in our beef not being marinated in poo, and.... 

Two, it may also prevent beef shortages as city employees consider this message before buying beef.


Now, you may be wondering why this is on Expatiate Wog blog.  I just thought our British friends would like to see how the Colonies have progressed since we won our independence.

YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW, BUT GODADDY IS NOT

Here is the mind of those who want to nanny the Internet. Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy web registration service went to Zimbabwe to shoot elephants. He chose the most corrupt African nation that is easy to bribe for anything he wants. He displaced the African game wardens who usually shoot rogue elephants. And, he got his "bag" of elephants.

Here is a partial quote from Domain Sentral

Earlier this year, GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons made news after taking a trip to Africa.

Was he there working with impoverished African children or supporting an important charity.

Again, Bob Parsons and GoDaddy have made news, this time for announcing their support for the Internet Censorship bill SOPA, which experts have said would destroy the Internet as we know it, adopting a system of government censorship similar to that of Iran and China.

GoDaddy had stated previously that it believed SOPA was "a welcome step in the right direction",oice support for the controversial bill.

GoDaddy goes on to condemn the ease with which people can conduct illegal activity like selling fake drugs and sharing copyrighted material on the Internet today and dismisses concerns about the potential drawbacks of SOPA and the Protect IP Act.

So, the hypocrite condemns law breakers. I wonder if he would allow the possibility to bribe one's way into the Internet via Zimbabwe and destroy the big Internet Elephants who trample the little people.

See the whole article at the link above:

African proverb:

When the elephants fight, only the grass gets hurt.

Parsons is typical of the crass elite in high places who want the world to bow to their lusts while the little people below obey the law.

YOUR WATCH "DOG" TELLS ME WHERE YOU ARE FROM

If you or your grandfather had a mongoose for a watch dog, I know you were living in India. 



There is a moral here I think. Possibly, it is that you do not have to be poisonous to be deadly and efficient at destroying the enemy. We must all learn the virtue of moving fast and hanging on.

HOW TO TRAIN A PET LION

The British Colonial Office during the 1930s came up with the notion that the Kenya highlands could be settled by Englishmen who were experienced farmers and adventurers. This was thought of as a sort of second try at what England meant New England (USA) to be during the 1700s. 


Well, it worked pretty well. Englishmen who felt hemmed in by their neighbors, and by the changeless class status into which all Englishmen were thrown, took the opportunity, sold out, and went to Kenya to seek their fortune. They settled in the Kenya Highlands west and north of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

They made the highlands produce all sorts of commodities, including coffee, tea, wheat, oats, vegetables, cattle crossed with local breeds, and much more. Men like Lord Delamere cashed in huge fortunes and estates in the UK and came to Kenya and developed farming and commercial business from scratch. They really must be credited with laying the foundation of commercial and agricultural life in Kenya as it  is today.


Among the settlers were many rough and ready characters. They developed their own oddities, and it was almost essential socially to be just a bit strange in some way. Jim Hodson was a personal friend of my parents when they were missionaries in Kenya, and our family used to visit his farm. The Hodsons were Bible believers and a delight to be around. Jim had some amazing tales to tell of life in those early days. 


One settler, living not far from the Hodson farm, had some wild pets he had tamed. His pride was his full grown pet lion, which was actually house broken and pretty much had the run of the farm. As with all settlers, this man and his wife had beautiful gardens and flower beds all around the home. The perfect climate in the Kenya Highlands made it possible to have a year round paradise with minimum care and effort.

Jim Hodson raised cattle and had a large vegetable garden, but his main commercial product was wattle bark. Wattle is from the Acacia family of trees, and its bark has medical use. In Kenya, Wattle bark was used to extract tanning acids for leather processing. Jim's wife once said that when someone called on the phone, and when Jim was out on the farm removing the bark from the trees, she did not know whether to tell the caller Jim was barking or stripping. Alas, trade talk.




Jim Hodson told us the following story about one of his neighbors.


All settlers had an African hired hand to simply keep the grounds immaculate, and a popular Kenya innovation was the "sun downer," a cocktail gathering at sun down for other neighboring settlers. 


This white farmer came in from his farm one day, and walking through his flower garden and grounds, found that they had been dug up pretty badly. He was furious, and he knew just who had done it-- his pet lion. He had broken the lion of rooting up the flower beds, but he figured the lion had backslidden. 


"I will teach that beggar to muck about in my gardens." 


The settler, like many of his fellow farmers, carried a walking stick about with him, though he was not at all lame. It is a British thing, and if you don't understand it, you must ask them about it. I don't understand it either. 


He took his walking stick and went looking for his pet Simba, lion. He found him, and he promptly gave him a good caning. The lion was hardy, and the caning did little harm, but the lion cringed, and finally the lion slunk off into the shadows humiliated. 


"That will teach that rascal." The settler felt good about his being a firm disciplinarian with his pets around the farm. He then walked into his living room, and what do you think he found lying in front of the fire in his fire place? 


SIMBA !! His pet lion. 


The settler had just given a totally wild lion a good caning. He was terrified, but it was too late for that. He became quite a legend in the highlands, and his friends loved to invite him around to cane the lions on their plantation. 


I suppose there is a moral in this. 


If nothing else, it simply shows that man is master of the wild kingdom, BUT, only if man has no fear. That is very hard to accomplish unless man believes he is in charge. 


Try it, and let me know how it works for you. We have some very wild feral hogs here in Texas that are known to be very vicious. I would like to invite you to come and visit us, and you can show me how to cane a wild hog.

WALKING MY MONKEY

In the mid 1970s, while we were missionaries in Ethiopia, we lived in the heavy forests of the Rift Valley on Lake Langano about 200 miles south of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The area was still rather primitive, and we were very isolated from the world. Our neighbors were the Arussi Galla people who are thought of as backward and primitive. They were not exposed to the outside world in many respects, but they were NOT backward.


Missionaries have opportunity to have unique pets. We have had several. The most puzzling pet we ever had was our monkey at Langano. Some Arussi kids brought a young monkey one day and asked if we wanted it. They must have heard that white people from America craved strange animals. To an African, a monkey is about as exciting as a rat. 


We were delighted, and we tied the monkey to a tree and got busy building the critter a cage. This must have seemed even more strange. The Africans would have tied the monkey to something and left him there probably. Here was the European (Fagangi in Amheric) building a nice palace for a monkey, the scourge of every African gardener. 


Well, the first order of business was what to feed our monkey. My wife Elizabeth and I recited several stories of monkeys which we had heard and came up with an obvious list of delicacies the monkey would certainly like. We started with a banana, which we handed to the monkey. There are thousands of stories about monkeys and how they love bananas, right? He looked it over carefully and threw it down. So, we just knew he would love peanuts.


Peanuts are what the African farmer used to catch a greedy monkey in his garden in a well known monkey story. Well, when our monkey was given a dish of peanuts, he sniffed them thoughtfully, and then he went and sat in the corner of his cage and squawked something in fluent monkey which we dare not translate here. 


The same thing happened with fresh corn (which baboons love), boiled rice, bread, and everything we came up with. We had visions of this monkey dying of starvation because he had not read the books telling the civilized world what monkeys love to eat.


I decided the monkey needed some exercise, so I put a leash on him and took him for a walk. After wandering around a while, I walked through some knee high grass. 


As we went along, grasshoppers would jump out of the grass ahead of us in all directions. The monkey went crazy. He would grab them in mid air and cram them into his mouth as fast as he could. Our monkey was a gourmet. None of this common book food for him. He would only eat grasshoppers.


So, in the early evening every day, you would see this "missionary statesman" walking his monkey in the tall grass. It was either that or the monkey would starve. And, he associated me with the whole process, so I had to walk him because I had been the one who first pleased his delicate apish palate. The Ethiopians were amazed though. To them, a man walking a monkey would be the same as a man walking a rat would be in our culture. Imagine a man taking a walk with a varmint.


You just never know what you will be called upon to do in the line of duty.