THE MONITOR (Kampala, Uganda) 28 July 07 The Snake Man (Edgar R. Batte)
Do you remember your first encounter with a snake? It must have been a creepy experience. If you haven't come across one, then you probably don't want anything to do with this dreaded crawling creature. However, there is someone who won't buy your opinion. He has actually made snakes his friends for life.
He freely plays with them, teases them as he rubs his fingers against their fangs and winds the limbless reptile friends around his neck. He tactfully holds them by their neck so they won't bite him.
Yasin Kazibwe, 23, a resident of Entebbe has cut out his niche as a keeper of snakes. He rears them at a farm in Busambagga, Entebbe. Kazibwe draws his passion from the assertion that snakes, like human beings, deserve love, care and attention.
However, that is not to say he has lived to love snakes all his life. Until he got training on how to handle them, he dreaded them. In fact, his first experience with a snake was nasty.
"It was in 1998 when Floyd Nsimenta, my trainer, left me in a room with an open box containing a snake. So the snake escaped. I had no prior knowledge on how to handle snakes yet I had to get it back into the box. Unfortunately as I tried to pick it, it bit me. I was so frightened," Kazibwe narrates.
However, that was before he was told that the snake that had bitten him was actually not poisonous. From then on, he became curious and wanted to learn more about snakes.
Slowly, Nsimenta, a snake exporter in Kajjansi, started teaching him the basics on how to handle snakes and later how to befriend them. With his newfound knowledge, he made friends with Jackson Erikson, a foreigner who was fascinated by his craft.
He keeps them in boxes. Photos by Edgar Batte
Kazibwe says rearing snakes is a matter of courage not necessarily skill.
"He took me to Zimbabwe where I upgraded my skills in rescuing reptiles, packing, feeding and protecting them as well as sensitising the public on how it can harmoniously live with them," he further explains.
He was in Zimbabwe for three years and the skills that he acquired have enabled him to expand his farm on which he also rears chameleons, lizards, geckos, agamas, monitor lizards and tortoises which he has rescued in the last nine years.
When he returned, he developed an idea of starting a project with a proposed name of Uganda Reptiles Village, which dream he is yet to realise. Right now, he still rents space and is looking out for partners who he expects to fund the project as well as assist him process a licence to work with reptiles, which he lists as some of his major challenges.
He is also thinking about how he can create new species under a research project he recently embarked on about snakes around Lake Victoria.
Currently he is still studying the snakes in the area and he says he has so far come across 49 types of snakes. Kazibwe, together with the six boys that he works with always goes out to hunt for the reptiles. They then cage them in wooden boxes from where they are fed on foliage, rats and insects.
To him, rearing reptiles or particularly snakes does not take special skills. "It is a matter of taking courage and knowing what to do. It is as easy as holding a cat. As long as you can learn how to hold their necks and tail, you'll be able to handle snakes."
Of the 49 types, Kazibwe says, 14 can cause internal bleeding once they bite someone thus the venom saturates within the blood causing death after sometime, which many rural folks would interpret as works of witchcraft since someone often simply collapses and drops dead.
Kazibwe encourages society to make an effort to learn about reptiles, and appreciate them, which will also help in preservation of their habitats like swamps and forests. However, he says not all snakes are meant to live in the wild.
"Some are domestic whereas others are meant to be in forests but are now within homes. The domestic ones are the type commonly characterised with feeding on eggs and the chicken itself," he explains.
He says many of the snakes have been forced out of the forests following deforestation and destruction of swamps. He advises that to keep them away, one has to make sure they clear bushy areas around their homes, to keep away the rats and make sure poultry houses are built at a raised distance from the ground.
This is part of his message whenever he is hosted on local FM radio stations to talk about his unique hobby. Meanwhile, people around the area know him as the snake man and they always call him up whenever they come across a snake.
What Kazibwe wants at the moment is a sponsor so that he can get a large piece of land to rear the snakes. "I am looking for a place where I can let them out and they won't harm anyone."
When he secures a place for the reptile family, Kazibwe will use it to target tourists and students for study purposes.
The Snake Man