An unlikely visit at school.

Greetings everyone.

There are certain times when unexpected events occur, leaving us in awe. Today was one of such days when an unexpected event occurred. While carrying out the days routine at work, educating the children, nothing prepared us for the "strange visitor" that came in today.

Sourc

It was about 1:25pm when the strange visit occurred. The sun was scorching hot and shining brightly. I was in a class trying to round off my work before the closing bell rang at 2pm. Shouts from the neighbouring houses around the school premises alerted us and we (teachers) hurried out to the school gate to see what was going on.

When I got to the school gate, I saw a group of boys chasing something that was running quite fast. Initially, my thoughts went to "snake". It is common knowledge that snakes tend to come out during hot days to bask in the sun but then a glimpse of a claw cut my eye. Hold up, snakes don't have claws right?

I and my fellow educators kept on looking, the excitement of the chase was already brewing in us and I know that some teachwrs would have joined in,if not that they were still at work. Then, another shout was heard at a far corner of the street. Turns out that the creature they were chasing had run into a neighboirs backyard and those agile boys were relentless. They enterwd the compound and hurriedly went to the backyard to "hunt". Yes, that was what it felt like to me. Thoae boys were on a hunt.

After almost twenty minutes of chasing the creature,it was finally anbushed and killed by one of the boys. When they brought the creature they had killed, I was ahocked to find that it was a monitor lizard. "What! Where did it come from and how did it get to our school grounds?" I asked no one in particular but a kind old man answered me.

"There is an abandoned uncompleted building at the next street and that building has been overtaken by grasses and weeds. So it is very likely that the monitor lizard came out from there", the man replied.

Only an aaaah! came out of my lips. The monitor lizard was dead and it was held by its long tail by one of the boys. He then began to ask around for anyone who would buy it but no one answered him or showed interest in his proposal. After asking a few more times, the boy dropped th monitor lizard beside our school gate and left. Every other onlooker also left since the hunt was over.

Standing a few steps away from where the monitir lizard was kept, I couldn't help but marvel at how it shares a striking resemblance to a snake. I was curious to know more but I was too scared to get close to it. The best I could do was take pictures of it from a far angle.

What shocked me the most of all that happened today was when the school's security guard who was elderly came out to pick up the dead lizard. He claimed that it was a delicacy in his native town and he was going to enjoy feasting on the lizard. Right there and then, my teacher ethics were forgotten as I almost retched. I'm sure my face was literally green and pale 🤮😷🤢.

Right before my eyes, the guard we fondly refer to as "baba" took the monitor lizard inside, placed it in a plastic bag and kept it with his personal belongings. He added salt to injury when he began to tell us of what he was going to do with the animal once he gets home. He talked about roasting and then preparing peppersoup with it and my reaction was ....WTF 😱

Till this moment, I am still trying to wrap my head around all that occured. This is a brief run down of how my day went. Do let me know if you lhave heard of people eating monitor lizards as well.

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Thanks for reading ....shalom

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Images used are mine except otherwise stated. The pictures were taken from a distance. Zoom in to see it clearly.