The Bishop and the Cobras

Viggo drove out to Mbulu to visit the Catholic bishop for the area today. It's a couple of hours of driving on roads that are rougher than most anything we've encountered so far. Part of the drive involves driving up 2,300 ft. cliff (the Rift Valley escarpment), partly on bare rock.

The majority of Mbugwe identify themselves as Catholic, although only a small minority of those are active church-goers. It's very important that we develop a good relationship with the Catholic church, if we want Catholics to actually use the Mbugwe Bible when it's finished. Viggo's not back yet, but I talked to him breifly on the phone, and it seems the meeting went well. We have already gotten to know most of the priests in the Mbugwe area, and they have been very positive so far, but meeting the Bishop is rather critical, as he is a very important figure in the church.

It's starting to get colder here, and the snakes are coming out of the forest above our house to sunbathe, or so I'm told. Our guard killed two cobras out in back of the house the other day. Snakes are one of the main reasons why we have the neigbors cows come and graze in our yard on a regualar basis. The cows keep the grass short so we can see the snakes. Snakes were also my main motivation for wanting a dog, because I was told they're really good about barking and letting you know if they see one, which apparently Simba did do with the cobras the other day. Sorry I don't have any pictures, but I'm glad I didn't have to see them.

And then yesterday our friends' dog was spit at by a spitting cobra. They are American missionaries who are gone on furlough, so when the guard at their house saw that the dog was going blind, he came up here to ask for help. Viggo went down and helped to rinse the dog's eyes with milk, which is supposed to help. I am reminded that we really need to keep a close eye on
Daniel when he's playing in the yard. It's not quite as bad as I make it sound though; we've only had 3 snakes in our yard that I know of since we moved here.