An Anecdote

I just wanted to tell a little story that went down here a few weeks ago...

It all begins with this guy Manuel, who is famous here at Agua Viva. He is a Chol Indian from Chiapas (he lives right across the river from Guatemala) who came to study at our seminary a few years ago. To be able to do so, however he cut down a mahogany tree in the rain forest and hauled it by himself in planks to a highway to sell it. Then he took a five day bus trip up to Ensenada without eating the whole time, because he didn't have any money for food. Also, he is just over 5 feet tall and when in Chiapas, does outreach with the Zapatistas in their territory. So that is Manuel.

He is currently staying at Agua Viva, working here until the next seminary session starts (he will enter his third and final year). He is working with the maintenance staff, and he mostly goes around with a machete and hacks down all the weeds. And I mean all the weeds, he is just constantly macheting.

Well a few weeks ago some of us were getting tools and things ready for the American groups that would be coming, when over walks Manuel, dragging something on a rope behind him. As he gets closer we realize that it's a snake, and that it's alive. And he gets even closer and we see that it's a rattle snake. Apparently he had found it in our workshop when he went to get a rake, so he found a rope and lassoed it up and dragged it down to show us. Not wanting a live rattlesnake around, the men starting killing it, and it eventually got beheaded with a shovel. The head stayed tied up on the rope, still poisonous, while the body kept twitching for a good while afterwards. I wanted to touch it, so they gave it to me to hold, all scaly and limp.

So now I am in the elite club of people who have held a beheaded rattlesnake. All in a day's work at Agua Viva.