Snake Encounters

I appreciated the chance yesterday to see the Lillian Lincoln Foundation documentary, “Minutes to Die: Snakebite, the World’s Ignored Health Crisis,” which was followed by a Q & A session with Dr. Robert Harrison from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The film highlights that simply ignoring the snakebite problem is a social injustice, because throughout history it has inequitably plagued the poor. The hope now is that access to quality treatment, especially throughout the tropics, will result from WHO’s recent (and long fought for) recognition of snakebite envenoming as a neglected tropical disease.

Probably in part because in Sierra Leone when people are bitten they seek help from traditional healers rather than clinics or hospitals, the country lacks quantitative snakebite data. Anecdotal data on snake encounters, on the other hand, should be readily available. Here is some from SELI’s Young Writers clubs, which illustrates the ways children come in contact with snakes.

A Snake Hissed at Me

Hawa K., REC Primary, Kent

One evening, I finished cooking with my mother. She dished out the food and we ate it. Before long, I went to the toilet. As I pushed the door open, I saw a large snake with black colour, raising its head hissing at me. I ran quickly to tell my mother. But when my mother came with me to see the snake, it had disappeared.

Snake Bite

Hamza D.C., New Apostolic SS, Lumpa

Once my mother and I were going to the farm. On the way my mother said I should go to the bush and bring a large amount of wood.

On the way to the bush I was holding a stick in my hand. When I reached there I was removing the wood. Suddenly, a snake in the bush came and bit my foot and I shouted, “Help me! Help me!” two times before I saw an old man come down from the trees with a cutlass and I knew that old man was called Pa Turay. If someone was not there, I should have been dead. The old man looked around for some leaves that he would use to put on the bite of the snake. The date was August 23^rd 2005.

The old man asked, “Who sent you into this bush?”

I said, “My mother told me to come and collect wood to go and prepare meat for my father.”

The old man took me to my house in Muska Village. I was not feeling bright. The old man said to my mother, “Take your child and let him have some rest.” When my mother went and laid me on the bed she said, “Let me give you some money because I haven’t prepared a meal yet.”

The old man said, “I don’t need your money. Just take some medicine and place it where the snake bit him. And it is necessary for him to eat after he rises.”

Suddenly my father came and saw my foot got swollen. My father asked my mother, “What happened to my only son’s foot?”

Then my mother said, “It is I who did this. I sent him to the bush to collect wood for you to prepare meat,” and she said, “I will not do it again.”

In the morning my foot became normal again.

A Snake Bit my Sister

Adama K., Wenner Kuhhnle Primary, Lumpa

It was Sunday afternoon. My younger sister and I were walking along the bush. A big snake came out of the bush and bit my younger sister and she began to shout. I did not know what happened to her.

Immediately I took her up and carried her to Howa Uncle. I was afraid because the place where the snake bit my sister began to spread over her body. I took her to Howa Uncle because Howa Uncle knows different types of medicine. If a person has an animal bite, he will heal the person. That’s why I took her there.

Before my uncle could go to enter the bush to prepare medicine, it was too late because at that time my sister began to feel weak and after one hour thirty minutes, my sister died.

I cried and cried as if she was going to return but there was no way to do so and when my mother came back from Bo, she found her daughter had died. She cried and cried and my father talked to my mother to stop crying, she would not return again. “So you have to wipe your tears and keep praying God will provide you with another one.” My uncle said that he could prepare something. As my uncle said that word, my mother started to cry again. My father asked her if she wanted to kill herself. “You have to keep praying for the ones who have left, let God bless her for us.” And my uncle said, “As for me, I have done my best.”

A Snake Accident

Foday A.K., Dankawalie SS

The 16th August 2010 my brother sent my friend and me to go and search in our farm for all the palm kernels. The name of my brother is Yanka Lansana and the name of the farm is Papa Yefie.

As soon as we arrived we saw the first one. Because I was happy to go to the farm, I was the first person to climb the palm tree.

When I started to cut the branch and I saw a big snake called a cobra. It usually hunts birds on the tree. It was angry when it saw me and it rushed towards me. I shouted, "Ah! Ah!" My friend told me to climb down the tree. The snake, too, was afraid of me but that was unknown to me.

So I decided to hold the snake but my hand missed it because I was afraid. Then I got to the other side of the tree. I saw the tail part of it. I drew it and I fell down on the ground. By that time my brother, Kalie, was there. He rushed and killed the snake.

I was seriously wounded on my leg. I had fallen on a big stick. For two hours I could not stand up. My brother shouted. At that time two little boys were passing on the road. They heard my brother crying. They came but they could not carry me from the farm to town. It was three miles. I was bleeding.

My brother gave me first aid treatment. He asked me, "Can you go to town?"

I said, "Yes, I will manage." I didn't want him to be afraid.

We left the farm at 11.00 am. Because I couldn't walk fast, my brother walked with me step by step until 4.30 pm. We reached the hospital compound. When the nurse saw me, she shouted, "Ah, what is wrong with you?" At that time I couldn't explain anything. They called Yanka Lansana, "Your brother has come with a problem." The nurse treated me but she wasn't able to cure my wound so my brother took me to Kabala for good treatment at the Kabala Government Hospital.

After two days I was better. I will never go there again and I will never forget that day.

Snake Bite

Sheku M.B., Kabala SS

Any day I see a snake I remember my snake bite on the 25th March 2007. I was going to the farm to do some brushing where I planted my cassava. On that day I was not happy. My elder brother and I had had a quarrel over a cutlass. He said I took his cutlass. I said, "No, Brother, I can't do this to you—take your cutlass and refuse to answer." I appealed to him and he accepted. 

Then I took it and told my mother goodbye. The distance from the farm to the town was seven miles. One man was going to the farm on a motorbike. I stopped him and asked him to take me. He said I should pay Le 4,000. I paid and he took me as far as the farm.

I saw rabbits and monkeys were destroying my cassava. As the animals saw me they ran away. What caused the monkey to destroy my cassava was because the place was very bushy so I started to brush. When I approached I cut a stick that fell on a snake. I didn't know that the stick fell on it. The snake became wild and bit me. I fell down and began to cry for help. I took my cutlass and cut where the snake bit me and it bled. I tore a piece of my clothes and tied my foot.

I went to the road. Soon a woman called Jarrie came and saw blood all over my foot and she asked me, "What is wrong with you?" I told her and she called her husband, Chernor, to come. He carried me on his back. Jarrie took me to the doctor. He put something like a stone inside my foot that helped me feel better. The woman sent a message to my family to come. As soon as they heard the message, they came for me. They thanked Jarrie and also her husband. My mother paid the doctor Le 12,000 and told him he was her son, and thanked him, too. Then we returned home.