Snakes and Fireworks

So yesterday, November 5, was Guy Fawkes day, a day during which people in the UK, Australia and here in South Africa celebrate the foiling of Guy Fawkes' plot to blow up the House of Parliament in England in 1605. The tradition is that on Guy Fawkes night to have bonfires and fireworks to celebrate the day. So last night we went to Fish Hoek beach to watch the fireworks and the celebration. Wow...it was crazy. It isn't a organized thing where the city sets off a big set of fireworks, instead there was a roped off area where people were anyone was allowed to shoot off their own fireworks. Most of the fireworks were being shot off in that area, but plenty of them weren't. Also, a lot of the ones being set off inside the roped in area weren't necessarily staying in the roped in area. At one point, a firework went off beside where we were standing and we were literally inside the fireworks "shower". It was a bit hectic. But the whole time we were there, no one was hurt, and all in all, it was a lot of fun and cool to see fireworks on the beach and be part of all the celebration.

Along with that excitement, about 2 days ago the gardners at our house were working in the garden and found a puff adder living under one of the bushes just outside our house. A puff adder is one of Africa's most poisonous snakes and definitely not something you want living outside your front door. They called the "Snake Busters", who sent out a young guy with long black hair dressed in all black with a skull on his tshirt, to take care of it. He pulled out his snake tongues and grabbed the puff adder with them then grabbed snake with his hand behind the snakes head. We took several pictures, which I'll post later on. So, fortunately the snake was discovered and taken away without anyone being bitten and the snake buster inspected the rest of the yard and told us that he didn't think there were anymore. We did however find a cool Leopard Tortoise along with the snake, who we kept in the garden. His name is Tommy. He doesn't bite.

Tuesday I had a lunch meeting with Avril and two ladies from the USA who are with a program called Hope2Africa that uses creative arts for their ministry to the kids in the townships. They are here working in Masi, and since the MMA is about to expand into Masi and they are doing the arts and we are doing music, we thought it'd be good to work together. So it'll be a cool couple of weeks working with them in Masi.

Not much else going on here. Although we did have our big MMA fundraiser last Saturday morning, and it went really well. Also I rented a car the other day to use for the rest of my time here. Its a dull lime green 1978 VW beetle. Its pretty awesome!

But I hope everyone is doing well and I'll be posting new pictures in the next few days, so you can look out for those.

Cheers!