Every child's nightmare!

(Written 15/11/2013)

 Ok so many of you know if you have read my blog before… my latrine and I have had some adventures.  There are always cockroaches crawling around, lizards making clicking noises and creeping around, A RAT/MOUSE THING, the “wonderful” smell, my daily butt and thigh workout while I squat to use the actual bathroom, and all the frogs that end up in their today.   Well today I had another scare… in reality it wasn’t as bad as the rat/mouse thing but it sure freaked me out at first. 

So here I am, enjoying my morning bucket bath, when I look down and (between my feet is a small hole that drains the water) usually when I glance down I see the white pipe that lets the water run into the pit latrine…. Well this morning what do I see… black… it looks like the plastic bags that the markets give out but the longer I look at it I realize it is a dark head with two black glossy eyes looking up at me.  Well I freak out jump out of the little shower area, but I am dripping wet and naked so I can’t just leave, plus I’m not completely done with my shower, so what’s a girl to do. Well I rinse off the little soap that remains and brush my teeth, then get dressed all while keeping a very close eye on that creature.  Of course in my head I’m thinking worst case and it’s a snake… more specifically a black momba (eeek).  So I'm probably going to be bitten and die in my latrine, not the most ideal location to die.  and my family is going to realized that I haven't come back from tomaring o banho and come looking for me and find me dead, naked, and being consumed by a black mamba.  (In my defense we recently had a session on dangerous snakes in Mozambique, ,so of course that's all I'm thinking about now)  Once I’m dressed and have everything in my hand, I dump all the remaining water onto the hole, hoping to at least wash the monster down while I have time to run out…. but no this guy is tough.  The said creature begins to move and squirm his way out.  Turns out it was just a big old toad but still brought back terrifying memories of being a child in the bathtub convinced that something was going to crawl up the drain.  I can’t tell you how excited I am not to have a pit latrine once I get to site.  Oh the adventures of a latrine...