SUNDAY NATION (Nairobi, Kenya) 25 May 03 Passengers scamper as snake comes out of bag
Passengers on a vehicle travelling on the Bungoma-Kitale route had a scare when a python emerged from a woman's luggage.
The vehicle conductor, Mr Salim Situma Selele, said the woman, aged about 50, boarded the vehicle at Chwele trading centre headed for Kitale. But when the vehicle reached Matunda trading centre near Kiminini, it stopped to pick up a passenger whose luggage was to be put in the boot.
"I had to create space for the luggage by moving the woman's luggage. But her bag dropped and the serpent, measuring about 1.5 metres, slithered out," the conductor said.
As the passengers, the driver and the tout scampered out of the vehicle, the owner of the bag remained calm and started calling the reptile by its name, Indepwa, as she talked to it in a local language. The snake obeyed and went back into the bag.
The passengers and the commuter taxi crew threatened to kill the reptile, but the woman pleaded with them to spare it "because it is going to perform a very important function".
She asked them to kill her instead.
Pressurised to disclose what the function was, the woman said the snake was "very special to barren women" and she was taking it to a Kitale town estate for the purpose. She would, however, not disclose the treatment process.
The crew refused to travel with the woman on the same vehicle and left her stranded by the road.
In the run-up to last year's General Election, a woman was found carrying a snake in her baggage on the Kapsabet-Kisumu road. She said the reptile would enable a politician to win the poll.
Another snake found by traffic police in a woman's bag near Kitale town, last year sent the law keepers and crew scampering for safety.
Passengers scamper as snake comes out of bag