Slaying the Dragon
Natty’s friend came over to visit and she brought her little doggie with her. At one point they went outside to walk the dog, allowing it to do its thing outside rather than in. Her friend was sitting on the back step and Natty was standing beside her. There they were, happily shooting the breeze when suddenly, through her peripheral vision, Natty sensed movement. She turned her head to the left, and what she beheld rendered her speechless with fear! She jumped from the steps to the ground below, and the movement jolted her voicebox into working once more!
“Snake!”, she screamed! Her friend beat a hasty retreat as well, and they ran around the house to the front door to come inside to get me.
The snake had been stretched on that metal thing in the picture above. The metal thing was right above their heads. The snakes body went off to the right, down the wall and behind the plate covering the light’s socket. The snake was hunting for food, you see. Three small frogs live behind that socket. One escaped but two were trapped behind the metal plate with the snake. As you can see from the picture, to the right there is a frog, he seems to have been enfolded in the snake’s coils as he could not move from there.
Of course, there is more…
Natty and her friend insisted that the snake needed to be killed lest it make its way inside the house (and I do mean insisted) so I sent Natty over to the neighbour’s house to borrow the machete. Bwoy, I am just realised how helpless we have been living here, we don’t even have our owna machete! We can’t really claim to be West Indians, can we?
Anyway, the neighbour sent over his machete, and with the loud screams and the shouts and the heckling of the watching fair maidens in my ears, I stepped up to do battle with the evil serpent. Rass, now I know what the knights of old must have felt like as they stepped forward to do battle with the wicked, fire-breathing dragons of the day! 
Anyway, I chopped at the snake, but only brushed its body. (Possibly I was standing too far away! 
) The snake seems to have realised that it had left “its batty exposed outta door” as we say back home, and so it quickly moved its whole body behind the metal plate.
After slapping at the metal plate half heartedly a few times and slipping the machete into the crack between the wall and the plate and jabbing away to no avail, I declared that this time the snake had got away. Despite the cat calls and the jeering, I strode to the front of the house, where Natty’s friend spied another neighbour, the Jamaican next door known as “Country”. “You ‘fraida snake?”, she bawled out to Country. “Naw! Which part him deh?”, answered Country, as he climbed down from his truck’s cab. “Snake cyah do you nutten!”.
He entered our garden, tall, dark, striding forward purposfully and fearlessly, his eyes covered by a dark pair of shades, and it occurred to me that he resembled the Terminator as he took the machete from my trembling grasp. He went around the back of the house and he tried the same sort of strokes that I had been doing, to no avail. He then began to pry the metal plate away from the wall most vigorously, jabbing underneath it forcefully with the bloodlust which coursed through his veins apparent from his actions!
The snake foolishly decided to abandon its sanctuary. The head poked out from behind the metal plate then it made a dash for it, its body stretching out as it “flowed” from beneath the plate. “Chop him!”, the scream went up! Country drew back his right arm, took quick but careful aim and swung his arm forward in one mighty chop! Clang! The snake was chopped almost in two, the head joined to the body by a slim bit of flesh on one side! It began to thrash about and flail its head and ‘neck’. Country used the machete and with a deft flick of his wrist, he pulled the serpent from its lair. It fell to the ground where it continued to thrash around helplessly.
With that, Country decided that his task was done and he bade us farewell. He handed me back the machete (with which he had emasculated me ) and he strode from our garden.
Here is a picture of the snake’s body as it lay on the ground thrashing about.
Click here to see bigger picture.
With that, Natty’s friend declared, “Well, my work here is done.”, and she too took her leave. “What work?”, I thought to myself. “Well, I guess it was her who called Country.”.
Oh well… a job well done! Thanks, Country!
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Oh my….you have snakes in Jamaica????? I am sooooooooooooooooooo afraid of them things!! I don’t know what I would have done if I was there…probably pass the shite out!!
Boy I tell ya, you brave, the fact that you went after it, and tried to kill is a whole lot…don’t let Country action mek you fell bad…you did your part!!
Whew Snakes……….**shuddering** Ugggggg!
~Smooches~
Oh Lawd, I LAUGHED SO HARD the neighbours must be wondering what’s wrong with me.
Oh you poor knight, didn’t get to shine in your armour, what must Natty be thinking of her hero now.
But look how dem two ladies run for you, what is women’s lib coming to?
hahahahaha…
oh gosh no!!!
snakes are too much for me. like Natty I would have come calling for you too. i must tease you though MB. beau has his machete and he not even in a yard right now. you must get one quick.
all joking aside, you all are very lucky. i’m unsure what snakes the caymons have but good thing you got it before it got you….
RASSCLAAT! At least Natty, you, Natty’s sistren, Country and myslef are of one accord….ALL SNAKE FE DEAD! Chop up dat rass wid cutalss yes.
OK, I know what I need to buy you for Xmas now….and it well cheap to!
I didn’t know Cayman had snakes, and dat mofo look large my yute!
Nice read still.
No machette Mad Bull!!! What the hell yuh tellin mi! I’m sooo disapointed. Well good thing Country did deh bout! Poor snake just looking for a meal, just in the right place at the wrong time. Well mi know dem frogs deh happy fi dat! I didn’t know cayman had snakes myself! An mi did deh ova deh a walk up and down outside!
My yute anybody ask yu why yu could’nt kill di snake tell dem sey you is a conservationist like Steve Irwin.
(Whoo whoo what a beaut a Caymanian Garden
snake in it’s natural environment whot a steamer.):-)
Somuch for your Jamaican heritage. Cayman has yuh by the……. ;D
no machete? well actually i cant say nuttin i aint have none either lol.
Hi Mad BUll-Just passing through. Will blogg again soon.
Hey, you took pictures and blogged about it - that was your job. I know for a fact that snake killing is not in the blogger’s manual and therefore you’re not required to kill it.
I’m soooooo thankful I live in a city. No snakes. Whew!
Now I see what you were talking about… I’ts not your fault, you just didn’t want to destroy you hurricane shutter thing… They expensive as you know…
New joke now… How many caribbean people does it take to kill a snake?
Answer, 5… One to lend de machette, one to swing it, two to holler directions, and one to tek pictures and blog about it…
Snakes freak me out totally! I wasn’t getting within 10 ft of that thing
Ok, yes, we do have snakes here, but as far as I know, they are not poisonous. That was some variety of garden snake. I really did not want to kill it, in the same way that I don’t want to kill the frogs. If they can’t really harm us, I don’t like killing them. At the same time, I like my piece peace as much as the next man, and so I do what I must. I will admit, though I know logically that the snake can’t harm me, I didn’t want to touch it or have it touch me either. I don’t really want the frogs (or for that matter, any creature that isn’t a cat or a dog) touching me.
Yo - those snakes are harmless, but your wife is right, you do not want them crawling around inside the house.
Depending on what socket he was playing in, if he went up the conduit and into the space above the ceiling, it would have then been easy for him to get inside!
Man, I felt like I was watching Discovery Channel a while ago. No snakes for me.
I hate snakes too and I am ALWAYS seeing them the last time was in a basket of magazines by my hairdressers scared all the women had to find ah man to kill it ah hope you got a machette we call it cutlass in trini you know what they say there must be more around.
Rass my yute!
I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time!!
Whe yuh come from again and nuh have nuh cutlass?!!? (Kiss teet)
Like Dr D say, “All snake fe dead!!”
Poisonous or not….de only good snake fe me is a dead one!
I’ve never seen a snake in the wild and you have spam.
I dropped by a few times to read this post and showed it to a few people..lol…You are the Dragon Slayer….lol…Excellent write up and pictures
Wow, what a cool shot.. Snakes freak me out.
I’m traveling the world through my computer and this is my stop in Jamaica. Will you please bring me your flag with a quick visit? You’ll see what I am talking about when you get there. You dont need to leave a comment to leave your flag.
On my sidebar, you’ll see the Jamaican flag show up… If you do… thank you!