Why My Sister Needs Her Own Blog

I talk to my sister Becky twice a week on "Skype," the wonderful program that lets you talk over the internet via a headset plugged into your computer.

She lives in Sanaa, Yemen, and has been going out to a village once a week to work at a clinic. Mostly she deals with women and children, all of them very very poor, many of the women widowed either in fact or in effect--their husbands are crippled or in prison.

The injustice and cruelty that these families endure is horrifying but unfortunately all too typical of that part of the world, which makes you understand why "visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction" was listed as an indication of "pure religion" in the Bible.

Anyway. There is this one widow with nine children who has latched on to Becky and sees her as an angel from heaven. She will even slip into the examining room at the clinic between patients to talk Becky's ear off. She is horribly, unspeakably poor, living in a little hole of a house and barely surviving.

Becky has a policy of not being a Santa Claus type of philanthropist, but she put her ideals aside a few weeks ago and bought this lady a wheelbarrow-load of groceries, a very enjoyable experience.

This lady keeps asking Becky to come visit her. In that culture, you honor someone by going to visit them in their home, and Becky has done this to hundreds of women, thousands of times.

However, a problem: the widow told Becky that a snake got into their house a while back and it's still there. "It holds its head up like this," she said, demonstrating with her arm and hand.

Becky went home and told Rod she was sure from the description that it was a cobra, and he said Naaaah.

Then yesterday the widow's son came along to the clinic and told her more about the snake. It crawls along with its head up, he said, and it's red and black. How big is it? Well, he guessed, about THREE METERS LONG, and as big around as a slice of bologna.

(Pause until the chills subside)

In the widow's little courtyard is a two-foot-deep "well" for catching water, and the snake lives in there, just a few feet from where they sleep. They are all terrified, but no one knows how to kill it or has the nerve to try.

And being a poor widow, there's no one she can ask for help.

Becky went home and researched on the internet, finding that there are three species of cobras in Yemen that fit this description. One is so poisonous that a bite can kill you in 15 minutes.

Becky does not plan to visit until the snake is out of there, honor or no honor.

She and her family have this sort of adventure on probably a weekly basis, and I think they need a blog to record it all and share it with the rest of us. Becky says she's not a writer. Believe me, if she could write it like she tells it, we would all be checking it every day.

Meanwhile, last night I made this casserole for supper that used these long skinny spirally pasta. Mistake. I was telling this snake story at the supper table, and I just about couldn't eat my food.

Quote of the Day:
"For physics class we're going to weigh a galaxy."
--Matt, at a Sunday dinner. And he added:
"It's not as hard as it sounds."