Its a bird, its a plane, its a gecko, its a...

Had an interesting afternoon this past Wednesday. It all started with me taking a quick stop at home in the afternoon right before I went out to an orphanage to ref a bball game.
I was planning to go out and visit this orphanage about an hour outside the city run by a guy named Matt ( a very good volleyball player I am told). He had invited me a number of times and it worked out well to go out there on that Wednesday because our school had set up a middle school bball game against some of his middle school aged kids. On the afternoon we were leaving, the athletic director asked if I would ref the game. I said sure and I soon realized I would not be able to handle the heat in pants and dress shoes- so I had to go home and change. I really only had about 20 minutes before the van would leave so I was in a hurry.

I quickly changed and as I was at the front door I had to pick a pair of shoes. Well I really didn't have any appropriate shoes, so I picked a pair of shoes from the corner rack I hadn't really worn that often. As I was balancing on my left foot I placed my right foot in my shoe. As I started to place my right foot down I soon realized that there was SOMETHING... in my shoe??!? I immediately thought it was a gecko so I started to FREAK OUT and quickly ripped the shoe off. As soon as the shoe hit the ground a snake popped out of my shoe!!!!

I think I squealed like a little school girl as I watched it go back into the corner. Well it took me a moment to gather myself, I looked around very pleased that nobody had seen me lose any sense of my manly dignity, and I put the shoe back on. Just to let you know, I took the other shoe and nearly beat it to death before I trusted it enough to place it on my left foot.
Now this snake was very thin and I would say at least 30 cm long. After a time of reflection, I thought it kind of looked like a harmless garter snake. So being in a hurry, I left it in the corner shoe rack to deal with after I got home later that evening.(After all, I had to go to the orphanage!)

Upon arriving to school, we quickly set of for the orphanage, and after driving an hour and a number of wrong turns (normal driving out here) we finally found the place. This place(I will try and remember the name and place it here afterwards) is on a nice quiet farm like property with very few people. They have a large main building for the kids and another building for the staff.
They also had a nice concrete bball court with a nice high mesh covering protecting the court from the direct sunlight. That is when we met their middle school bball team.

From vballandfeb21

These kids were about 1/4 the height and weight of our team (and I thought our team was small). Although they were ages 12-14, I guess through malnutrition and other early developmental deficiencies, these kids looked like the size of a slight and small Canadian grade 3 boy (or a newborn Dutch kid! Kidding!).
Anyways, our coach Daren Beck (also the Action Cambodia guy out here) let all of our players know this game was a "good will ambassador game". Our guys did a great job of playing the game the way they did. They did not get overly aggressive or try and block all the shots- they played with generosity. At half time they mixed the teams together and had a good game. For this group of orphans, this was their first game, so they were pretty nervous, but you could tell they had lots of coordination and skill beyond their size. After the game they had drinks, oranges and bananas for everyone. It was great to go out there and get to know some of the people.

Anyways it was getting late so we all packed up and headed home. When I got home it was already around 7:30 so Les was upstairs putting Maya to bed. Steph was downstairs doing some homework when I then said, "Do you want me to show you something really cool?" Steph, in her unimpressed look said yes and I proceeded to walk her over to the shoe rack. After I moved a few shoes around she saw... "THE SNAKE"!
She quickly called Julia and our neighbor girl Mony. After they were all freaking out too, and I had completely destroyed the shoe rack, the snake was finally out of the house. I will put up a small video of the "Cobra" that Steph took! Oddly enough as I was trying to get it out it tried to strike me- that is when I did not get impressed! Well, there you go- never a dull moment in Cambodia!


take care,
Deano

PS After the snake was gone, Les popped her head out of the window and asked what was going on. When she realized it was a snake (and later learned it was in the house for a few hours) she was freaking out too. Come on, its just a snake, right?