It's a Wild World

Just finished playing basketball with some of my kids and I'm about to head home and bask in a little slice of heaven I call the cold shower (today was ridiculously hot and humid!) but just wanted to share some amusing bits from the afternoon.

So I'm dribbling the basketball around waiting for school to finish when I see a bunch of my students screaming and running away from one of the teachers. So I head over to see what the commotion is about and there, wrapped around the teacher's shoulders, is this huge snake! So of course everyone is excited to see how the foreigner reacts to the creature (the kids make it a point to show me every insect they get their hands on whether it be deepfried--yup they eat bugs over here--or still alive). The teacher comes close enough for me to see that the snake is at least 6 feet long and not very friendly looking. I, of course, manage to keep an interested face--I nod as the students ask me whether I like snakes--and somehow maintain the poise of someone for whom being several inches from a 6 foot snake is a normal occurence. The teacher, satisfied that there will be no crazy facial expressions from this foreigner, turns around and heads to the school soccer field. I follow curious to see what fate awaits the 6 foot beast. Will it be burned? Beheaded, it's corpse left to feed the ants? Or is snake a delicacy here?

The snake is set free.

With all the questions running through my mind, I forget that I am still in Thailand--a land where people don't just go about killing animals. It's weird because despite the number of insects I've been offered to eat, I have NEVER seen any Thai actually kill a bug of any sorts. A mosquito is feasting on your leg? Shoo it away, that's what your hands are for. So there was the 6 foot snake, on the soccer field and the teacher actually had to chase and shoo it away. So now, not only does my school soccer field double as a grazing field for the village cows, but it's apparently a sanctuary for 6 foot snakes as well. Lovely.

About 10 minutes later, while playing basketball, three of the dogs that hang out in my school (some of them even walk in during my classes...as I type this, one of them is actually under the computer table asleep) had a little argument that they chose to settle...physically. These 3 went all out, howling and snarling and biting and wrestling each other to the ground. Of course none of the kids were surprised by this and instead focused their attention on the foreigner's reaction. I think I maintained a pretty stoic face (though I was a little concerned as the melee inched closer to the basketball court). Almost simultaneously, the chickens next door decided to settle their own little argument physically and while they weren't loud enough to drown out the growling (and whimpering) of the dogs, they made quite a scene of their own. Between the brawl of the dogs, and the ruckus caused by the chickens, and the knowledge that a 6 foot snake was roaming my soccer field, and that a huge beatle with a mettalic green coat was being shoved into my face by my students, I could not help but just laugh at the situation. It was all at once bizzare and amusing and, once I knew all the dogs involved in the fray made it out okay, most entertaining. What a wild world!