第1196期:The Visitor

Todd: Hey Leath!Do you want to go ahead and talk about the story you we're going to say?Leath: OK. Yeah, this was about-- I'd say a year and a half ago and it was in Harare the capital, where my mom lives.I was on holidayback home seeing my mom and anyway it's a Sunday morning and I was in the shower.Got up pretty late, it must have been about half ten and all of a sudden my mom burst into the shower and she says," Leath, Leath, there's a snake, there's a snake in the kitchen."And so I thought, "Ah, what kind of snake would this be?" because we live in the capital, residential area almost high-rise. Well, not high rise but residential area.And so I put a towel around my waist and walked bad-temperedly through to the kitchen. Attached to the kitchen we've got this little courtyard where we set out to have morning coffee and breakfast. It's tiled and leads onto a small garden. And so I walked out onto the courtyard and there was a seven-foot Egyptian cobra. Wow! I was really, really blown away because I know a bit about snakes and I know that a bite from an Egyptian cobra in a country where the antidote isn't readily available is almost certainly fatal. And there we were, my mom and I, with a seven-foot Egyptian cobra slithering between the courtyard and our kitchen. And, eventually, we trapped it in the courtyard and I went to fetch guys who work for national parks. National parks are the guys who kind of look after animal problems within the city and brought them around And we were hoping that they were going to catch it because Zimbabwe isn't so rich at the moment and stuff like that. They don't have the facilities to keep caught animals so unless it's endangered they just shoot it, so the guy shot our seven-foot cobra.Todd: Oh, they shot it huh?Leath: Yeah, and we had to bury it outback.Todd: Really? Well, still I'm glad you just didn't want to be bitten or anything.Leath: No, no. No way.Todd: What a story. Thanks!