Notes on a Snakebite

Stani was a trusted bonobo caretaker who also stayed in my apartment when I went on furlough to the states every year. He watched after Rex, a guard dog German Shepard.

Stani took his job seriously, and kept meticulous notes on a tiny pad of paper, seen above. Usually, the comment was, "Nothing to note this day," but there were others such as the birth of triplet lambs, or, on the 14th of September, 1994, "it rained all night. We got our fifteenth day (of the month) advance on our pay. I made the rounds accompanied by Recks (Stani's word for Rex)."

The words from the 21st of September 1994 still chill me. Stani wrote, "A woman came, asking for Mademoiselle (me), seeking treatment for her worker, bitten by a snake in the bush, brought to Kinshasa by airplane, the health of the worker is critical."

Stani did not know who the woman was, and I never learned the outcome of what must have been a tragedy. There were plenty of venomous snakes in the field and there wasn't a drop of antivenin in all of the country, not even in the capital. Other than supportive care, medicine had little to offer a snakebite victim.