The Bizarre Events of Monday 26 February

Here is sweet little Billy Bob - everyone knows and loves him as our greatest Irish charity case from the streets of Cork. He's been a happy boy here in Botswana so far.

UNTIL MONDAY, that is!!!

Monday we got an urgent message to phone St. Mary, our beloved maid and fixer of all problems.

Little did we know this otherwise sweet lady from Zimbabwe who is typically known to wash clothes and polish floors would be capable of turning into...

DANGEROUS MARY THE COBRA KILLER!!

(pictured here, complete with deadly weapon)

we were, working away and thinking nothing was wrong. We rang her as requested and she hits us with the problem:

A cobra had gotten into the house and spat Billy Bob in the eyes!

Panic hits the JW unit (as we're not used to dealing with cobras and spit and venom in doggy eyes, etc.)

Luckily for us, Mary is a not just any old angelic soul, she's also brilliant. Before we had even phoned her, she had already (a.) killed the snake (b.) flushed Billy's eyes out with water and milk and (c.) called us so we could go to the Vet and get eyedrops that will kill the pain/bring down the swelling.

She even saved the snake for us:

so that we could take a look at it (I was asking a lot of questions on the phone i.e. what color is it, how big is it, trying to be able to describe it to the vet if necessary - to which she just simply kept replying "its a cobra!")

After we rushed home with the eye medication from the vet (who assured us he would survive and most likely not be blind if we attended to him soon), examined the snake for ourselves, and dripped the drops in the eyes of the now-squinty-eyed terrier, Mary made sure to tell us she would burn the snake for us and not to worry.

(Here they believe that if you don't throw a dead snake on the fire, others will come for it)

So here's a photo of our now temporarily sightless boy:

He'll be just fine, just have to bump into things a bit for the next few days as his eyes will most likely remain swollen shut for awhile.

What's funny is that he gets around just fine, I think due to those two massive sattelite dish ears he has that allow him to hear everything in his path.

The end.