Snakes check in, they don't check out

So it's monsoon season here. Which is awesome if you don't mind mud. I prefer mud to sweat, so bring it on, I say. Anyway it's been raining all afternoon. This tends to send humans and assorted critters into houses. Today our critter was tree snake. I just got home and really had to pee so I ran to the bathroom. A small tree snake beat me to it however. I don't know which of was more freaked out, me or the snake. I'm pretty sure my bladder was fuller, so I weigh my options quickly. I could just jump over the snake and hope that it doesn't attack me while I'm peeing, or I could try to catch it and throw it outside. In hindsight, given the fact that it was just a green tree snake, the first option probably wasn't a bad idea, but I went for the second. I stand there for a moment, not sure how to go about catching a small, wet snake on a slippery bathroom floor. What I'm sure of is that I'm not going to be one of those girls who goes crying to some man to take care of it. Tongs, I think. I need some tongs. By this point I've completely forgotten that I have to pee. I go downstairs to grab the tongs, but they aren't there. I look all over. Can't find them. I don't want to ask my family, because then they'll wonder what in the world I need a pair of tongs for when I'm clearly not cooking. Finally I give in. I go outside to inquire as to the whereabouts of our tongs. Just as I suspected, my host dad is like "Why do you need them?" I still want to do this myself, so I try to be as vague as possible. "I need to pick up something." He is surprisingly unsatisfied by my answer, at which point I break down and tell him there is a snake in the bathroom. "Forget tongs," he says "we need a big stick." "Ok,"I reply "I'll go get one." But it was not to be. We have entered man territory, where girls, especially foreign ones, dare not tread. We've got some snake-killin' to do. He grabs a big stick and rubber boots and runs to the bathroom. He crouches into stealth position, with a gaggle of kids noisily trailing behind him (which seemed to me to rather defeat the purpose of stealth, but whatever). He slowly pulls the door back and wacks the snake on the back. The snake was not expecting this, and screamed (I swear, I didn't know snakes could scream). The only one screaming louder than the snake was my host dad. It came right at him and he jumped on the toilet and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of the snake. A few minutes later it was all over, and he had the snake's body on a stick and was chasing his niece around with it. I was exhausted just watching the whole spectacle. There were several men around and now they're all retelling the story like it was some sort of mutant python.

I also learned today that in some of the poorer regions men like eat fried cow and pig testicles when they drink. Yummy. Glad I am not their friend.