Cobras in the Kitchen and Playground

My first full-time elementary teaching job was at a newly constructed private school. Weeks before the new semester, we swept construction dust and pulled protective plastic off new cabinets, window frames and chalkboard eraser vacuums. Student desks and chairs shone. Not a dent or chip on any of the freshly painted legs. 

The four-story, U-shaped school shone bright white. The owners spared no cost. Transplanted mature trees threw shade across the playground, and fresh rolls of green sod snugly carpeted the lawns. Aesthetically pleasing boulders, timber pagodas, raised boardwalks, and a wood bridge filled a pond and wooded space on the campus’s east side.

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You could feel the new school was at an ecotone, that boundary between two environments. To the west and south, empty lots, fields and remnant farmland sat waiting. Development was coming. Still, the whiff of rural life lingered. It hadn’t been long since farm machinery rolled through rice fields and open agricultural space filled the neighbourhood. In a sense, the school grounds, woods and pond were recreations of that recent rural landscape. 

On the school’s first-floor bulletin board, a bright Ministry of Education poster was flanked by upcoming student events and smiling pictures. It described Taiwan’s six most common venomous snakes in shiny brilliant colour. I blinked. I read. My introduction to some of what slithers in Taiwan. I was shocked but fascinated. Only 150 metres north of the school, a busy four-lane city road bustled with cars, buildings and people.

Eastern Canada had no school posters warning of dangerous garter snakes. But this poster must have been standard in thousands of rural and mountain schools across Taiwan. I was transfixed. My nose close to the pictures and descriptions. The snakes were beautiful and exotic. The stuff of Nation Geographic or nature documentaries. It swirled in my head, a combination of fascination and fear.

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That afternoon, forcing a neutral voice, I casually mentioned the poster to the assistant dean, Anita. Nonchalantly, I wanted to gauge her response. Was this real, common, or likely? Would they slink through our campus? Would I walk the campus at recess in Kevlar hip waders armed with a pitchfork?

Anita lightly pondered the question as if curious about the day’s cafeteria lunch or if it would rain later. She sighed, “Taiwan has these snakes, but it’s unlikely we’ll see them here.”

For the record,  the gardener did discover a harmless five-foot Chinese rat snake forging in a school dumpster. The fire department was called to remove the dumpster diver per standard protocol. Fire departments across Taiwan are responsible for snake wrangling and removal.  

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My second school was a different story. Closer towards the hills, it sat flush against the green agrarian zone. A farm, fields and an overgrown cemetery with an accompanying forest surrounded three of the campus’s four sides.

One year, yellow Daihatsu excavators cleared trees and brush a 100 metres east of the campus, sending critters darting in every direction, including through the cemetery’s forest towards the playground. Most turned away at the school’s solid surrounding wall, but a few nonvenomous snakes and one baby cobra skedaddled through a small chain link section. Making it partially across the manicured lawn, the tiny cobra was captured and sent back into the cemetery.

After one typhoon, a waterlogged cobra did make its way down into a dry basement cafeteria cupboard.  The kitchen aunt’s shrieks curdled our blood, perhaps including the cobra’s. It was removed without incident. 

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Snake and human interactions occur, and bites happen, but each doesn’t search for confrontation, and each goes out of their way to avoid it. Beauty and exoticism aside, snakes are graced with common sense. People are large, unpredictable, and have shrill screams at eardrum-busting decibels.

My interest and appreciation in snakes continue, but my alarm about venomous snakes is tempered now. Like animals and humans worldwide, each generally keeps to their own. It’s perhaps similar to the millions of surfers sharing waves with Great White sharks yearly with relatively few incidences.

 

Now, I walk the playground, hike and cycle farmland and mountains unconcerned. I’m aware, but long ago returned the farmer his pitchfork. I try and practice some snake common sense.