heres the video of my neighbor and his son trying to kill snake #2 in my house. i first spotted snake #2 a few days before this incident and casually mentioned that there was another snake living in my house and this time the snake was living in my roof, not sleeping on my back door (like snake #1, photo in a previous post).
snake #2 wasnt really bothering me, staying up in the roof (photo also in a previous post) and it was probably eating rats and other things so we left each other alone. but as soon as this came out of my mouth my friend (13 years old) got his older brother (18) to check it out and they decided it needed to be dead. they had killed snake #1, which turned out to be a fer-de-lance (or in spanish equis, because of the x mark pattern it has) which is a deadly viper that ive been told they ship to india to fight mongooses beacuse they have a faster strike time (fer-de-lances chances against a mongoose being around 50-50, while a cobra has around a 10 or 20% chance of killing the mongoose).
i dont know shit about snakes, and neither do most of the panamanians in my community. their knowledge is that at some time either themselves or someone they knew (my host dad) was bitten and had to go to the hospital. so they have a certain judgement about all snakes, and do not distinguish the difference between dangerous & venomous snakes vs. all other snakes. to them snake=bite=sick=hospital and i cant judge them because thats scary and has happened before and they want to protect themsleves and their family. anyways getting back to topic, i was content to let this thing chill in the roof but we needed to kill. no mas snake #2.
so after telling my friend and having his older brother come to check it out, older brother says hold on ill be right back as he goes down the hill to his house. im assuming hes going to get his machete even though i offered him mine, or maybe the ladder or a giant stick to smack it down from the roof. he comes back and has a handful of rocks which he gives to little brother and his sling shot. even though hes a killer shot with the sling shot (taking down birds during mid flight which we later cook up for a snack) im not impressed with his supplies and im a little skeptical. turns out i had reason to be skeptical because he gets off 1 or maybe 2 rocks, connecting once and sending the snake scurrying up the tile roofing and hiding. we cant find it inside in the tiles or when we go outside and look on the roof. it either hid somewhere between them, or escaped off the roof as we were running around the house trying to locate it. anyways the snake escapes and now im a little more cautious walking around the house in case it stuck around and didnt escape.
flashforward 4 days, while im walking through my kithcen the snake is spotted in the exact same spot as before, up in the roof in the corner. i was contemplating not telling anyone and letting it be in peace, but not knowing what kind of snake it was and especially if it was venomous or not i decided it would probably be best to tell someone and get it out. also the news got around town pretty quick about the snake being in my house and ive been getting tons of questions about it everyday and if there are more snakes living in the house. i could have lied saying i havent seen it but for some reason they can always tell when im lying, and itd be better to get this situation over with. not wanting another slingshot versus snake in roof situation i go to a different neighbor, an adult this time, who gathers up all his supplies, ladder, machete, big sticks for whacking, even a metal hook to grasp the snake down and marches up the hill to my house bringing his youngest son (18).
this video is of their initial attack on the beast, which at the end of the video seems to have escaped again. after the video cuts out snake #2 moved up the roof and outside where they machete chopped it down to the ground (having a ladder and something other than a slingshot is helpful). then it then went to hide in my trash piles where they killed it. wierd thing is that they didnt know what kind of snake it was. even if they dont know if other snakes are dangerous or harmless they always know what kind it is and have a name or sometimes 2 or 3 names that they call it. but with this mystery snake they all said that they had never seen it before. same thing happened when i showed the videos and photos (theres more that i havent put up on the internet) to other people in my community. nobody had ever seen this kind of snake.
anyways, theres a little story and video for the folks, family, and friends back home.
miss you all and love ya, bye
