The Black Mambas of Malawi

It is snake season in Malawi. 'Mamba' means snake here in Lilongwe and the Black Mamba is the biggest of them all. It is actually the biggest and deadliest snake in Africa. And it seems that one was found in our carport last year.

I hadn't actually thought much about snakes until this week although I figured that they might be around. We are used to being careful about snakes in Australia in summertime and I probably should have put a bit more effort into informing myself about Lilongwe because it is in the wet season, the hottest season, which is just upon us, that the snakes are most active.

My Danish neighbour Birgitta found that out last week. She was sewing at her dining table when she felt something on her lap and looked down .... it was a snake. It fell to the floor as she jumped up and probably got more of a shock than she did because she was not bitten.

She showed me a photograph she had taken, before it ended up in more than one piece and I looked it up on the web later and think it is a harmless Vine Snake (see above).

It is now a very dead Vine Snake because Fred the gardener came in to dispatch it. Birgitta was left with a very bloody floor but no other damage.

She thinks the snake came in through the open doors and I had been aware that one must be careful about just this possibility but Birgitta is new to Africa and she also does not have air conditioning so keeping doors and windows open is a must for her. Well, now windows; the doors remain closed unless she can watch any comings and goings.

It was when I was talking to a friend who lived here for some months last year that I heard the story about the Black Mamba in the carport. He warned us to be careful early morning and at night and I have to say, I hadn't really thought about it until he mentioned the earlier unwelcome visitor.

Black Mambas (see left) can be as long as 12 feet and are nervous, unpredictable and lethal which is an unfortunate combination.  From the look of it they also have a very big mouth and very big fangs.

No doubt the paranoid nature is what makes them so aggressive. They have been known to attack cars. Apparently they like dry places and dead trees and rocky areas are a favourite. I suspect that means they also like getting under the roof of houses.

They live on rats and other small animals so the less there is for them to eat the better. Our Black Mamba visitor of the past may have just lost his way but remaining aware of the possibility of a return visit is important at least until the Wet Season finishes.

I have asked Manuel to put some very bright lights into our genset shed because the open breeze-blocks and the cool interior are going to be 'snake heaven'. And I am thinking we need the switch just by the door so we can reach it before stepping inside.

Manuel laughed when I said the snakes would love the shed and I wanted bright lights.

He said: 'No, this isn't Australia.' But when I told him of our Black Mamba moment  in the past and Birgitta's experience last week he quickly admitted he had it wrong and that the lights would be very bright.

Fortunately for me I will be out of here for most of the Wet although it is summer in Oz and already there are reports that the snakes are out in force because we had a very wet Winter and Spring. But to put things in perspective we have had only half a dozen snake encounters in the 14 years we have had the farm so it is not as if we live in snake central!

But as part of my snake education I will study the list I found of Malawi snakes and will share my new knowledge with Birgitta and my other neighbour, Pawadee, who are coming for coffee tomorrow:

Black Mamba:

The beast of the Malawian bush. An aggressive snake that has been know to attack cars driving along the side of the road. If you see a long, big black snake - get away from it!

Green Mamba:

Green mambas are more common, and are not aggressive snakes. Bright green in appearance they will spend more time trying to get away from you.

Puff Adder (and others):

Short, fat and poisonous. Adders are short and very well camoflaged on the ground.

Tree Snakes:

Poisonous and normally found in mango trees, which is apparently something of a mouse 'supermarket.' There are range of tree snakes in Malawi of which the Vine Snake which foolishly curled up in Birgitta's lap was one.

She thinks it must have been curled around the table leg and decided, once she was whirring away at her sewing that her lap looked much warmer and more inviting. It won't do that again!

Interestingly Birgitta showed me that she wore a silver snake bracelet and she smiled and said she wondered if it meant something. I am sure it does. I do believe that 'like attracts like' and the snake energy would have been more powerful around her because of the bracelet. She is still wearing it but keeping doors closed.

I actually like snakes although not necessarily ones I don't expect to be where they are. We have friends in Hahndorf who keep snakes and I remember the first time I held one, being surprised by how smooth, cool and calm it felt. But snakes in this situation are very different to snakes in your lap, your carport or your house or your path.

It is a salutary reminder to be careful. Just as we are at the farm in summer where brown snakes, also very deadly, are active and I never go into the garden or paddocks without high boots, my mobile phone and a great deal of attention on where I am walking. And we teach the children to freeze if they see a snake and preferably not to go out without a dog. I know it seems awful but better for the dog to be bitten than one of us.

We have had two cats bitten by brown snakes in previous years and luckily found them in time. A few days and quite a few hundred dollars later they were completely recovered and back home from the vet. I think they might have been bitten by baby browns with whom they were looking to play.

We also lost a yearling to a red bellied black snake which is even deadlier than the brown but rarely seen. So it is not that I am not 'snake-aware' but I have to say, having seen some photos of Black Mambas I prefer never to meet one in person. I am not sure the 'freeze' approach would work with them. Most snakes are more scared of you than you are of them and will slither away quicksmart as long as you stay still and don't threaten them. From the sound of it the Black Mamba would be tempted to have a 'go' at you just because you had the audacity to enter it's 'space.'

However, like all things including malarial mosquitoes and insane drivers on African country roads the snakes are all part and parcel of life here and there is a lot of fate and destiny involved in whether you are 'brought low' by any of them.

Some steps forward and a few backwards

Well, we have made progress on the genset shed (see pics above and below) and with any luck the generator should be bolted into place before we leave on Friday.

Apart from differing views on which way the roof should slope to cope with rains in the wet season, which is nigh upon us, the process has been relatively drama-free. The circuit board turns out to be about ten times bigger than expected which means we lose more storage space than we thought but I am not sure how effective it is going to be for storage given the breeze-blocks in the walls and the wrought-iron doors we will need to ensure ventilation is adequate for the generator.

When Manuel appeared with the circuit board it was clear that my instinct to make the shed as big as possible was a good one. Still, it is  a serious sort of generator and once up and running should remove the uncertainty factor from my cooking and put an end to double dinners.

We are going to have the roof sloping away from the house, the back wall of which you can see in the pic above. The door to the right leads out of the courtyard which previously contained a three-line clothesline but which has now been swallowed, well, half of it, by the generator shed. Our laundry is on the other side of that door/gate on the right-hand side of the pic above.

And talking laundries - on the 'steps forward ledger',  a young man called Griffin Khonje arrived on Saturday morning to sort out our washing machine. It was a bit of a joint effort with my reading of the manual to eventually discover that the support bars which he thought he had to re-insert were actually stabiliser bars which must be in place before the machine is moved and which the removalists clearly inserted and which now had to be removed in order for the washing machine to work properly.

Mea culpa. I really should have gotten in touch with Miele before the packers came in to find out what needed to be done to move the washer and dryer safely. Anyway, all's well that end's well and I know more about my washer than I ever did. My father-in-law, Roy, always said the first thing you do when you buy something is read the manual. Of course I never do. I tend to approach things from a needs-based perspective; if I need to do something then I find out how to do it. I wonder how many people ever read the manuals unless they need to?

The process took about four hours and we were two hours into it before I realised that Griffin needed to be doing the opposite of what he planned.  He hadn't read the manual even though I handed it to him when he arrived. I did notice that he sat down and read the manual for the dryer before he started on it. Lesson learned. I heated up some soup for him and Limited and Andrew after the washer was sorted and before he got started on the dryer.

That however constituted a few steps backward. No lights on the dryer and no insight from the manual and nothing from Griffin's efforts. Eventually Limited came to say he really did not think he could do it and we should get someone else.  I had begun to think the same thing myself but Griffin, apart from not reading manuals, had seemed to know what he was doing with the washer and I respected his skills.

However, shortly after even he admiteed defeat and I said I would get in touch with Miele and ask them for advice on what to do. I am wondering if some water got into the wiring en route and that is why we have power to the machine but no further than the contact point. An email has winged its way to Miele and I await their advice as to what one does in Malawi when the nearest service agent is in Joburg.

And another step backward on the electrics front is that our little B&O sound system has also become 'lightless' and refuses to work. It was fine a few nights ago but when we tried to put on our dinner music last night it was as dead as the proverbial dodo! Sigh. I doubt that there are many B&O service agents in Africa beyond the borders of SA so I am not sure how we are going to get that fixed.

Then again, Malawi has managed to produce most people for most problems most of the time so I shall see what I can find. One job done and another one appears.

One major plus this week was getting our pictures hung. Manuel who is doing our generator and who did the air cons and who is extremely efficient recommended a young man he knew and Andrew arrived with his drill, masonry bit and screws and plugs on Tuesday. Five hours later we had 30 pictures hung.

The huge painting of somewhere in Russia I think,  (see below) although that is a guess, took three goes to get up so we shall have some holes to fill when we take it down. Then again it took the two picture hangers who did the job in Perth the same amount of tries to get it right so he is hardly an orphan.

It looks great hanging over the dining table and it is the first time I have had it hung where I can sit and look at it from the lounge. In both of the Perth houses it was so big it had to go in the stairwell.

The other two 'hard ones' were more of a weight than size problem; the South African painting and the mirror but they went up with no trouble at all. It seems odd to think that we got these things in Cape Town and now they are back in Africa for a time. As are quite a few things in this house.

The mirror, (see above) has gone up by the front door and the painting (see below) as you walk through into the kitchen. When I think that these two have travelled from Cape Town to Adelaide to Perth and now to Lilongwe, along with the huge Russian painting, I can only be grateful that they have made all of their journeys without damage.

Then again, the early settlers carried valuable pieces of furniture and art and crockery across the world from Europe and England to Australia, Africa and the Americas long before removalists packing became something of an art form.

These big pieces were also packed in wooden crates for the move and I am sure that helped. Those wooden crates have now gone to make chairs and tables for Limited and Andrew. All in a good cause.

I am not sure what Andrew and his helpers, Limited and 'my' Andrew as we had to call him on that day, thought of the photo of my Russian goddess shaman figure which we hung in the dressing room; all feathers and bones and beak but I have found the Malawians to be pretty pragmatic and they did not seem too phased.

 I told them she was a Russian mother goddess and they just nodded. They are all pretty christian around here but, like a lot of Africa, the christianity sits on top of far more ancient and still revered shamanistic and animistic beliefs.

Some people are repelled by what looks like a decaying body but I think it is wonderful. Greg took the photo when he was in Khazakstan years ago because he knew I would be interested. I liked it so much I had it framed and usually hang it by a door so she can be a guardian at the 'gate.'

She represents the 'death' aspect of the Goddess and reminds me of the Indian Kali. Such images are meant to show us what is beneath the illusion of 'form.'

The ancient mother goddess was always seen as a trilogy: Mother, Maiden, Crone and Creator, Protector, Destroyer.

She has been with me now for about ten years and has hung in many of our homes. We have pictures here from all over the world - places we have lived for months or years - including Russia, India, England, Canada, South Africa and of course Australia.

Few of them have any real monetary value but all of them are important to us. They are memory, memento and decoration. They are 'things and stuff' but the 'things and stuff' which help us to re-create a 'home' time and again.

There is no doubt that pictures 'finish' a room and it was the last big job on the list. I can now say that we really have moved in. Although the painters have to come in tomorrow and touch up where repairs have been done to the wall so the television set should be moved for the 40th and last time which really signals that we have moved in!

So, eight weeks on from arrival and a few days before we return to Australia ... Greg for a week and me for a few weeks, we are pretty much organised in our Lilongwe home. It could have been much harder than it has been and it could not be any more delightful as a home than it has turned out to be. I feel very fortunate to have such a nice place to live and to have the opportunity to spend time discovering another country - in between my editing work, my writing, my reading, my cooking and my being.  It is all good.

NB. In the spirit of 'reading the manual,'  after writing this I decided to have a more careful look at our B&O and on doing so thought it might be wise to experiment with the adapters as opposed to just changing power points as we did the other day and voila! Le musique et bon! Greg has had Keith Jarret returned to his world and we have one less job on the To Do list. I then tried the same exercise on the dryer and found that yes, a light did flash on for the first time .... we must have some dodgy adaptors.. but did not stay on. This leads me to suspect that the dryer can work but does not because there is not enough power available at the socket. Another job off the To Do list but replaced by one for the electrician: increase power to the laundry sockets.

The move has been made

It will come as no surprise to anyone that this week has disappeared without any updates on this site. Moving in proved to be as expected except for the Africa factor where jobs which were meant to be done before we moved in have been done as we moved in, as we unpacked and not only have they been done they have been re-done.

It has been a lesson in patience and a reminder of Malawi time! Although I have to say, compared to Indian time the Malawians are pretty punctual.

It was great to unpack our things and put them in place. As I learned long ago and have said before: familiarity does not necessarily breed contempt but it does breed familiarity. It is the familiar which makes us feel secure and comfortable. I suppose it is why people are reluctant to leave homes, lives, jobs or relationships; when we feel secure and comfortable we are better able to believe in the illusion of certainty.

But, it is a comfortable illusion and I for one am grateful to have our things around us once again. We are in, as they say and apart from pictures still to be hung we are pretty much organised. However, the past week has been a haze of air conditioner technicians, plasterers, painters, telephone installations, internet installations, curtain hangers,  DSTV technicians, gardening jobs,  generator deliveries, bricklayers, alterations and installations in the guest-house, guest-house guests and a heavier than usual load of editing work.

We are nearly there. One of the dumbest things we did was put an air conditioner above the HUGE television set which was Greg's choice not mine; the size of the television set that is.. there wasn't much choice about where to put the air con. The .....thing has been pulled out and pushed back two dozen times in five days because of issues with the air con. Yesterday was the third replacement of parts.

When they left they said it was fixed. It wasn't. Surge protectors on the air cons have not been able to cope with the surges and have had them switching off and on. At least that was the story.

More work today and we think it is finally fixed.  We have a higher amp surge protector and the electrician found a fault in the circuit breaker for that section. Fingers crossed the problem is finally solved.

The television set gets dragged out once more on Friday, well, probably twice because of painting, so the peeling plaster and paint can be repaired properly.  And all of the furniture will have to be covered in sheets because of course they now want to scrape and gouge it out again before putting a plaster-lime mix onto the wall and making it flush.

I thought that was what they were doing in the first place but clearly not. They plastered and painted the repairs too soon and within a day our plaster was bubbling off the wall in massive blisters.

I did get a story, and this from the expat in charge, that they had wanted to get it done quickly for me.......... I replied, I wanted it done properly. If you had told me it had to take a fortnight to dry I would have said fine. I can't see the point in doing a job quickly if it won't last.

I do think that some people don't think and want to please so much that they do what they know they should not do; or refuse to think about what the results are likely to be, hoping, against all experience they have ever had, that this time, miraculously, the plaster and paint will adhere to 'wet' cement and lime!

He is a really nice man and works in Malawi building health centres and I am sure he did just want to please me but he should have known better. Maybe I scared him! I can't believe that. Maybe Texans are just programmed to be nice even when they don't want to be?

Given my absolute lack of expertise in plastering and painting - growing all the time - I am (or was) reliant on those who know more to tell me what is required not what I would like to hear. It has been, I am sure, a lesson for my American friend as well as myself. But it is hard to know the questions to ask if one has never encountered the situation.

I am making a note that in future I will ask: 'Tell me everything that you know about this situation, this process and how it should be done.'

It is a reminder that we make better decisions if we have as much information as possible. It is I am sure, more common than not, that we make decisions based on little or no information or experience and then wonder why things go wrong. The Virgo in my pushes me to research things and I should have done some 'net searches' on wall repairs so I knew what was involved. Note to self: if you know nothing about something then find out something about it before making decisions.

The curtains arrived  on Tuesday and were too short - measurement from top of curtain instead of hook line being the reason - and went back and returned Friday. They look great except one set was made to sill level instead of floor level and not what I had requested so they were sent back and the new ones arrived today.

Peggy and Rose who have done the curtains have done a fantastic job. When 'mistakes' have been found they just go away and fix it without quibbling or asking for more money... it just gets done. Given that it has cost just over $200 to make and install curtains in the entire house it is excellent value for money. However, while it isn't much in dollars for us it is a lot in Kwacha for them. But the standard of work is excellent.

The only remaining hiccup is a 'flaw' in our bedroom curtains. This is so slight that it is not worth finding new fabric and remaking them but there is a 'lighter' line which runs through the curtains at the same level. Peggy was disappointed when she saw it. It was the sort of thing which would only show up when the curtains were hung against the light. She had been very careful at Akbanies to check for flaws but she said in future she will have to check even more carefully. And I am sure she will.

I went out yesterday to inspect the 'house' being made for the generator and asked them to make it a foot wider. We lose one clothesline but given that they have begun laying bricks better to do it now than decide later. As the shed 'stood' someone of a skeletal shape - definitely not Greg or I -  might have scraped through on either side but that was about it. Luckily I went to look or we might have been tearing down walls of greater height.

And following a later inspection that evening and more discussions about access, putting in diesel, doing repairs and heavy rains we have made the 'shed' another foot wider, thus losing another clothesline and leaving us one which runs close to the razor wire.  I doubt we can do much with the razor wire so shall have to string lines across the courtyard vertically as opposed to horizontally.

We have also decided to put in a concrete base which is the slab we thought we had to install in the first place but which will now 'seal' the first layers of brick - locally made - which look pretty porous, from the heavy rains which are imminent.

We had hoped to avoid doing the slab because the concrete was found to be nearly four inches thick and strong enough to bolt the massive generator securely in place. However, having learned from my wall repairs I put more specific questions to the builder and made it clear we wanted one good job which would cover all possible problems, needs or catastrophes.  This adds to the time but, having done without the generator for this long it matters not a whit how long it takes as long as it is done properly.

The 'shed' should be finished by the end of the week and should be connected soon after but it probably won't get its roof and doors for another week.

The telephone technicians came this morning and scrambled around in the roof to get the phone and internet modem connections where I wanted them - next to my desk. They knew they had to get up into the roof because we established that when they came yesterday but they had no torch.

Neither would we have had one except we found that our new electric drill came with a torch, very sensible, and we had charged it up at the weekend.  I must have known.

Four hours later we were all set up without too much dust or drama.  Except that the 'house connection' is still too weak, despite being told it was much better than what was previously installed so I still have to use an internet dongle for reasonable access. I am hoping that whatever else needs to be done to make it work as it should does not require changes here.

Then again, it may have taken three times as long as it usually would but all is looking good. The washing machine is not working.... drum has come adrift I think ... but Manuel, who has organised the air conditioners gave me a number for someone who does all the work for the American aid agencies here and so Griffin Khonje will be here at eight on Saturday morning.

Looking back I should have gotten in touch with Miele before we packed it for the move. Then again, that is what the removalists are meant to know. However, fault is largely irrelevant at this point and here is where we are at.

More finger-crossing that he can repair the Miele front-loader otherwise it will be an insurance claim and need to be replaced out of South Africa.  Luckily we have the washer at the guest-house to use while we wait.

The move was relatively breakage-free although I had a few moments of 'horror' when the De Longhi coffee machine would not work. While we might be able to get our washer fixed here I would say there was Buckleys chance of finding a coffee machine repairer in Malawi. With some tinkering and cleaning on my part and Greg's we finally had it operational. It was my first decent coffee in two months.

Beyond the washer breakages have been minimal: one wine glass broken by Greg as he unpacked and a small piece broken off my pottery dish. They ignored my packing instructions so I should be grateful that it arrived in as good a shape as it has. Then again, I can always make another one when I get back to pottery classes.

So, as things stand, my picture hanger Andrew who was due at 9 this morning did not come but may come tomorrow and hopefully by the end of the week; the wall repairs will be completed by the weekend; the washing machine hopefully will be operational; the genset might be connected by the weekend; the genset shed should be completed by next week and apart from a few minor repairs like cupboard doors which won't stay shut (quite a few of them); or drawers which won't open (few of them too); aluminium doors which require herculean effort to lock and unlock; missing taps (only one); crappy showerheads which need to be replaced; the odd broken tile .... we are, as they say, pretty much set and the house is a lovely place to be.

As we enter our ninth week in Lilongwe it is probably not a bad effort! The frustration levels have been minimal which probably says that my 'inner work' has worked to some degree and that 'patience as a virtue' is becoming my middle name.

My desk on the landing is a great place to work and with less people roaming around the house I plan to get my two edits completed before we return to Oz at the end of next week.