End of term plays 25 March, 2009

Subtle serpent

Anisa and Kira each had parts in their respective year productions in the Banda Junior School plays.

Anisa was very convincing as a make-up fixing, dress swirling, doe-eyed lady-in-waiting to the love-struck Maid Marian (her friend Nanouri).  With Anisa wearing stage make-up and a long red dress, Jane and I felt we had seen a vision of her teenage future. The role of the girls was, essentially, to comment with many weary sighs on the charm and good looks of Robin Hood.

There were some fun lines in the play. Anisa played a second part at short notice, too, when another friend was unable to participate, apparently learning the lines on a single read-through.

Eye-brow entertainment

Kira, in the Year Two play about a very cute baby zebra who needs to ‘earn her stripes’, played a snake that fancies a zebra snack.

Jane was helping with make-up in the play, and after a night’s research came up with a very neat way to face-paint a snake

Meanwhile, Kira masssstered the ssssibilant Ssss ssssso necesssssary for a ssssnake.

More pictures here.

Robed in Robin Hood

Kira’s little catch 1 February, 2009

As regular readers will remember, Kira is our fearless naturalist, who often comes in with snails up her arm, or handfuls of spiders. At Christmas we gave her a naturalist’s set, with devices for catching dudus (that’s the charming Swahili word for insects) and a little jar to keep them in.
Today, she came in very excited. All that was initially visible in the jar was grass. “I caught a worm,” she said.
Jane, practising times-tables with Anisa, glanced at the jar and back down again. “Don’t know what that is,” she said. “Ask dad.”
Dad was typing. “I found a worm,” said Kira. Dad grunted, not really giving this his full attention.
Kira continued to stand by the desk, gazing thoughtfully at her prize. “I liked it because it’s got a little tongue that goes in and out.”
This caught Nigel’s attention firmly. Worms are not known for their tongues.  He stared at the jar.   And yes, Kira had collected a baby snake. Possibly a hatchling mamba, who can say? Our little naturalist helped to release the catch into some nearby (but not too nearby) trees.
More on mambas here.

Kira's jar of joy

Mamba in a bucket 30 April, 2008

A strange thing today – just as Jane drove to work and had a green mamba glide across the road in front of her, Nigel stepped out of the kitchen to be confronted by a 55cm black mamba.

He caught it and put it in a bucket. Actually, he caught it twice because, against expectation, it jabbed and slithered its way over the lip once. But it’s worth the effort to show the kids, who enjoy snakes with that love-horror that children reserve for nature’s dangerous beauties.

Our Kenyan friend Mussa, and Joel’s South African friend Louis, were less impressed. “Why aren’t you killing it?” asked Mussa, dubiously, voicing the most typical reaction to snakes here.

Nigel released the snake on a wide roadside verge next to the Nairobi National Park fence. He optimistically hoped it would dash into the park and continue its life killing and eating small, annoying vermin. Jane was more prosaic: “As soon as you’ve gone it will slither back on the road and get squashed by a truck.” As it was still playing dead when we left it, we will never know.

Useful facts about the black mamba:

Like the cobras, to which it is related, it only has one lung. This is probably why you never find mambas smoking in the wild

It’s not really black, more a charcoal grey with lighter underparts.

Mambas are quite aggressive. Most snakes, including the green mamba, will do everything in their power to get away from you – but black mambas are always up for a rumble

The biggest can grow to 4m in length – you wouldn’t want to put one of those into a bucket