Life or Livelihood

What a narrow escape!

David, a 14 year old boy from Turkana shocked many with his story of how he survived the scare of a cobra by a whisker. Together with his other friends, David had been on a day to day routine of herding his father’s cattle.

The day went on well not until evening when David realised that some cattle were missing from his father’s herd. Knowing how valuable the animals were to the father and the entire family, David set out to search for the missing cattle.

His friend’s cautioned him about going back to the wilderness to look for the animals but he could not listen to the. “This is the source of our livelihood,” sighed David. David decided to leave the rest of the herd with his colleagues to take home.

The sun was already setting when the ordeal happened.  David went on and on but was not seeing the signs of finding the animals soon. It was already very dark and he could no longer see where he was going or coming from. He was not aware of what he could do. The animals are nowhere and he is also not sure where he was.

“I thought again and again on what to do but I had no idea”, says David. Immediately he remembered a story he was once told by his grandfather about the same grazing field. “My grandfather had narrated to us about this field. It was so easy for animals to disappear and once gone, it would be so hard to trace them,” I recall him say.

“Since it was late, I decided to remain where I was. Thoughts came to me but I did not know what to do,” he says with tears rolling down his cheek.

“I don’t recall what happened afterwards. I touched something very cold and then woke up. It was in the morning, the sun was up and I could hear birds sing,” he poses. The young boy can not recall exactly how possible it was. A big snake (a cobra according to his description) coiled down where he was standing. It slowly crawled away and disappeared into the thicket.

“I wanted to scream but I could not. It was like my whole body was frozen. I closed my eyes and run away not knowing where I was headed. All I wanted to avoid was the sight of what I saw.” He remarks.

David went away and on tracing his route home, came across the animals that had gone missing. What a sad turn of events to him. After surviving the scare of the snake, he finds the animals.

“I have never forgotten about what I saw and I don’t know whether I will even on my deathbed,” concluded David.