Ikgopoleng's Love For Snakes

Bashi Letsididi
Correspondence | Monday November 1, 2010 00:00

 

A few days after the interview, he calls from Jwaneng where he works as a welder to announce that he has just caught a boomslang. 'I caught it a few minutes back. I am holding it in my hands as I speak,' he says with the calmness of someone who has just harvested a cob of maize.

Later, he released the snake into Jwana Park, a wildlife sanctuary owned and run by Debswana Mining Company.

kgopoleng's heart is so swollen with love for snakes that for two years he lived outside Botswana, volunteering as a caretaker for pythons. The reptiles were owned by an expatriate snake-keeper he worked for in Jwaneng. When the man relocated to Swaziland, Ikgopoleng tagged along. He fed the snakes, cleaned their cages and ministered to them as required. Part of Ikgopoleng's assignment in Swaziland was to breed rats that were fed as live prey for the pythons. On his to-do list is handling one of Africa's longest venomous snake - the black mamba. Chummy though 28-year-old Ikgopoleng may be with snakes, the major problem is that he has not darkened the doorway of a snake-handling classroom. He is also not licensed to handle them.

Ikgopoleng and these reptiles go a long way back. When he was younger, one day he was out in the bush when he came upon a group of playmates trying to tackle a metre-long cobra. The young Ikgopoleng calmed the boys down and stick in hand, cautiously approached the snake. To the surprise of his playmates, suddenly the snake stood still. Ikgopoleng proceeded to gently rub its back with the stick, well and long enough for it to relax and allow him to take it into his hands. A cousin of his who joins the interview midway repeats this account with neither variance of detail nor prodding from Ikgopoleng.

'If you are friendly towards snakes, they will be friendly towards you and vice versa,' he explains. Ikgopoleng has never been bitten by a snake. Only once has he killed one. That was in 2003 in Swaziland where he was tending the pythons. A black mamba had come out of a car's undercarriage and attracted an excitable crowd that made it very angry.

From somewhere, Ikgopoleng secured a broomstick, broke it into half and made for the snake. He was taking a huge risk. A black mamba's bite can deliver up to 400 milligrams of venom (enough to kill 14 adults) and its victims can potentially die within 20 minutes if they do not get anti-venom treatment. It is the fastest land snake in the world, capable of reaching a speed of 23kph.  'I hit it hard across the head with one piece and when it dropped to the ground dazed, I pinned it down firmly with the other piece,' he says.

After the incident, he is still yearning for 'another meeting' with a black mamba. However, when such an encounter occurs, he does not want any violence to be part of the interaction.

Then again, Ikgopoleng may have second thoughts about wanting to establish a long-lasting friendship if that meeting ever takes place. That is largely because his love story with snakes has a legal subplot that has put him in a bind.

He faces snake related legal problems that began when he visited Cwaanyaneng village near Jwaneng. At the time some women came to tell him that they had sighted a python near a dam in the village. Initially, the snake tried to resist but Ikgopoleng worked his magic on it until it warmed up to him. He took it home where he kept it for a week.

An eyewitness' recollection is that on visiting Ikgopoleng's homestead with a friend and peeping through a window, he saw an unbelievably huge python looped on the floor from wall to wall. It was his first time to see the snake. In one corner of the room was a made-up bed and heart pounding, he asked what would be the most natural question: 'Is there anyone who sleeps in that bed?

'Yes, me,' Ikgopoleng who had seen the visitors responded casually. Probably protesting its somewhat unusual guest status, the snake had gone on some kind of hunger strike. Ikgopoleng had brought it a full-grown live chicken but it just ignored the meal. Pythons are known to swallow human beings whole and sleeping in a room where a hungry one is slithering around is very risky.

But then Ikgopoleng has a brother who handles snakes for the Jwaneng mine. The brother has received the requisite training. It is not uncommon to come across snakes in open-pit mining and mine workers are trained to capture these reptiles when they are found.

Outside of official duty, Ikgopoleng's brother went to Cwaanyaneng, collected the snake and took it to Jwaneng where he kept it in his house for another week until the police came knocking. Both have been charged with unlawful keeping of a protected species.

By coincidence, Ikgopoleng comes from Barolong whose MP is Environment, Wildlife and Tourism Minister, Kitso Mokaila. Some three years ago when Mokaila was addressing a kgotla meeting in Cwaanyaneng, Ikgopoleng brought up his issue with snakes, requesting government assistance to put his skills to good use. By his account, he actually brought a live python to demonstrate that skill. He remembers Mokaila telling him about a snake park in Kasane and promising to take him to the relevant people who could help him realise his dream.

'I'm still waiting,' he says, leaving little doubt that he believes that his plea has been shuffled back in the pack. Ikgopoleng is also waiting for next year when he and his brother will take turns providing those attending court with a year's supply of nightmares.