Learning at the Speed of Cobra Venom

     Yesterday while walking home from the primary school (incidentally it's the route Cassandra prefers for jogging) we happened upon a cobra getting down to business with a frog. Its funny how many things you can learn in less than one second. Among these insta-lessons were the following:

1. Just the sight of a highly-venomouse snake puffing its neck out is enough to render the speech centers in Cassandra's brain nigh inoperable.

2. My supervisor has a vertical leap of nearly a furlong, and the reflexes of a cat/genetically-engineered mongoose. It helps arm me against the day we may need to face off in hand-to-hand combat.

3. I apparently lack some deep seated, life-saving aversion to snakes, which had me following the sucker into the bush fumbling for my camera.

What I can glean from these lessons is the following:

1. If I am ever in an argument with Cassandra, be sure to have a live cobra on hand.

2. If I am ever in hand-to-hand combat with my supervisor, rolling into a ball and protecting my soft underbelly is my only option. It worked great for the hedgehog I brought into the house last night.

3. If I am going to die in Uganda (a statistical certainty), it won't be on public transport-as I had previously assumed-but by blatantly disregarding the dangers of venomous African fauna.

All in all, I think I was able to turn that little episode to my educational benefit.