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<br />No, I did not eat the snake I found on my porch. What actually happened was that a friend of mine found out that another guy had trapped the snake, so the two of them came to my home, knowing I like animals. Usually I like to see animals alive, but I didn’t mind seeing the puff adder on my porch dead. Much safer to handle that way. At first I really did not want to touch him, but I decided I wanted the picture. I washed my hands really well afterwards.

Ms. Kraus' Class

Erika Kraus
2006-08-28 19:44:27

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Dear Ms. Kraus’ Class:

1) My dear Jacob-

No, I did not eat the snake I found on my porch. What actually happened was that a friend of mine found out that another guy had trapped the snake, so the two of them came to my home, knowing I like animals. Usually I like to see animals alive, but I didn’t mind seeing the puff adder on my porch dead. Much safer to handle that way. At first I really did not want to touch him, but I decided I wanted the picture. I washed my hands really well afterwards.

2) Tyler-

What it’s like where I am? Well, Athieme itself is a nice little town of about 9,000 inhabitants. It was once the colonial capital, so there are a lot of colonial-style buildings, including most of the homes in my neighborhood. There are the typical mud huts too, though, with the thatched roofs and dirt floors, no electricity, and water from a well.
The weather is hot, and getting hotter. We were supposed to have had Harmattan, which is the cool and dry time of year, but the coolness did not arrive. Now we are going into the hot dry season. Ugh. The mangos are ripening on the trees, and in another month or so, I will be wading through mangos. I am really looking forward to the rainy season, which will still be hot, but at least there will be rain. Otherwise, sometimes the weather is cool enough that I am comfortable and all my friends are cold. I laugh at them.
My town is lovely. In comparison to other towns I have been to, Athieme is well educated and has a little higher average income. That’s Athieme itself though, not the villages surrounding. The towns around Athieme are typical African villages, with public wells and mud hut communes and goats and pigs and chickens. There are goats and pigs and chickens in Athieme too. Athieme is a pretty town, but as usual, there is no trash collection. Women sweep and burn the trash piles, but between those clean-up days, the streets get full of market bags and ...