{"id":307,"date":"2010-09-20T23:11:40","date_gmt":"2010-09-21T05:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/brd\/wp\/?p=307"},"modified":"2010-09-20T23:11:40","modified_gmt":"2010-09-21T05:11:40","slug":"mambas-are-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/2010\/09\/20\/mambas-are-fast\/","title":{"rendered":"Mambas are fast!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is true that I am thankful for my phone.\u00a0 It is turning out to be more functional than I ever thought possible.<\/p>\n

It is also true that black mambas are super fast!\u00a0 Growing up in Arizona it was normal to see snakes whenever you went looking.\u00a0 The snakes I grew up with had fast strikes, but generally moved at the speed you would expect a snake to move at.\u00a0 The puff adders in Swaziland apparently move slow also, and constantly get stepped on.\u00a0 The black mamba I saw yesterday moved fast enough to make me shudder, and fast enough for all the bomake(mothers) in the village to sprint after it while the chucked rocks and tried whacking it with sticks.\u00a0 In the end it was bomake 1 snake 0.\u00a0 We have been told that when you have a snake just tell the women of the village, and the snake problem will be taken care of.\u00a0 In the case of it being a living animal, it is sad to see an animal meet its demise due to humans, and then not get eaten or made into boots.\u00a0 Knowing that at 6 feet it was a small mamba, but potentially a man killer (or cows, donkeys, goats, or puppies, they were all there) made me feel slightly better.\u00a0 I do regret not taking the body and doing something with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

4 meters is the length the black mamba will get up to according to the “Wild Swaziland” nature book I bought a few weeks ago.\u00a0 I got the book at a bookstore here, but it is likely available on amazon for $10 or so.\u00a0 Speaking of Amazon I have started a “wish list” both there and on www.thinkgeek.com<\/a> Also.\u00a0 They are under my email address. Karen (my sister) mentioned that a small flat-rate box from USPS is only $13 to here. (hint hint)\u00a0 It turns out that the only things that aren’t available here is technology and delicious candy.\u00a0 They have solar panels at most shops, but they are really expensive compared to their bought online counterparts.\u00a0 Fixed solar panel installs are apparently a common target for theft, so the portable solar that we brought is turning out great.<\/p>\n

One of the best things so far that I brought were the small $2 solar lights taht are intended for your driveway.\u00a0 Without electricity, those things are great!\u00a0 I have one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom.\u00a0 We had an electrician out to the homestead a few days ago to quote prices on getting juice, and it is extremely expensive, coming in just under $1000 US.\u00a0 So we are sticking woth solar.\u00a0 I have been in an email fight with this company that sells solar laptop chargers, since it is not charging my laptop.\u00a0 The customer service rep says she will send me some additional equipment to remedy the situation, so I will not disparage the company’s name yet.\u00a0 Being a techie for the group is paying off as I can say things like I have 15 orders I need to place, and I am govt, etc etc.<\/p>\n

Once the solar\/tech issues are fixed, it seems the largest issue is getting a candy fix.\u00a0 They have some candy here, including kit kats.\u00a0 What they don’t have is root beer barrels and m&m’s.\u00a0 I had the luck of running across both of these before I left, but supplies are running thin.\u00a0 We may be able to run across to South Africa and find them there.\u00a0 We haven’t yet crossed into Mozambique either, but that is coming soon.<\/p>\n

Even without candy and power, we are getting an amazing amount done.\u00a0 I am finishing one book a week.\u00a0 The last book I finished was Jason Carter’s “Power Lines.”\u00a0 It is a story of the Peace Corps volunteers life living on the border of South Africa and Swaziland.\u00a0 It is very interesting, and pretty accurate to our own life here.\u00a0 We are making progress on work, our 3 month assessment of our community is going well.\u00a0 We made it to the outskirts of the community yesterday and saw the second high school.\u00a0 They also have a really nice computer lab, so I am really excited about that.\u00a0 Sadly the transport back from there is difficult, and even with a partial ride, we walked about 5 or 6 miles in the 105 degree heat, going about 1000 feet uphill to.\u00a0 From the bottom of the plateau to the top.\u00a0 I will remember to bring more water.<\/p>\n

The walk wasn’t all bad, we did see a squished puff adder that moved to slow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is true that I am thankful for my phone.\u00a0 It is turning out to be more functional than I ever thought possible. It is also true that black mambas are super fast!\u00a0 Growing up in Arizona it was normal to see snakes whenever you went looking.\u00a0 The snakes I grew up with had fast …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}