CHRISTMAS is a time of merry and joyous celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, but not so when a snake decides to unleash its venom on your child as happened to  MWANGANA LUNGOWE’s eldest son.

IT was Christmas eve again and the neighbourhood was already in the mood for celebration in various ways.
Two of my three children were watching their favorite comedian Mr Bean.
As for me, I was just waiting for them to show the slightest sign of sleep and I would send them packing to their bedroom so that I could play my favorite rumba tunes.
The excitement from outside was loud and infectious. Most of the township was still up and about the streets in their various degrees of merriment.
There were still a couple of hours before midnight but already some fireworks could be seen and heard exploding nearby, in the town centre and across the border in Victoria Falls town of Zimbabwe.
The oldest of the boys, Mpo, was most likely outside in the yard enjoying the starry sky and damaging his ears with gospel hip -hop from his Chinese made Blackberry.
Just when I was beginning to doze off and entertaining the idea of  going to my bedroom to tuck in for the night, since  there was no sign of let up from the boys, Mpo burst into the living room and cried out loudly, “Dad, I’ve been bitten by a snake!”
My heart almost stopped beating, and sweat started pouring out of every opening on my skin.
I could not believe my ears. Who did not know what a snake bite could do? I was beginning to feel dizzy, my blood pressure rising.
I had never seen him look like that before, his face twisted with pain as he proceeded to extend his leg so that I could see the toe that had been bitten by the horrible creature.
I could see disbelief and fear had gripped every member of the household.
“Where?” I blurted out unnecessarily. Where else could it have been if not outside the house?
He led the race outside to the spot. I don’t know whether we expected to find the snake there waiting for us, but we looked around in the faint light of the torch and mobile phone but of course it had vanished or perhaps it was hiding near-by and laughing at our effort.
We dashed back into the house to see what could be done. I got down onto my knees to examine the injury.
There were three or four tiny punctures on his right big toe, little beads of blood hanging on to the sides of the holes.
My body shuddered at the sight.
The toe was beginning to swell and look very awful, and the pain shrieked out of his mouth in torrents of anguished screams as he turned and writhed and looked helplessly at me and his speechless mother in painful turns.
I was confused and for a while totally forlorn.
“My phone! Bring my phone,” I shouted at the boys who stood wide-eyed, trembling, near-by. Then I realised it was of no use. None of my contacts who lived nearby had a vehicle.
“Dad! Oh, daddy! It’s very painful,” Mpo cried pleading urgent action from me.  I reassured him that it would be all right as we would soon get him to the clinic.
It had not occurred to me that my wife had left the room, but I saw her burst into the living room trailed by our neighbour.
Somehow, I felt relief wash over me. Everyone knew her as a herbalist, and could have caned myself for not thinking of her in the first place.
Holding the foot in her palm, she examined my boy’s ugly toe. His anguished cry kept tearing at my heart.
Instead of producing something, she guided us to one man who had shifted to some house which might not be so easy for me to locate in the dark.
The look in my wife’s eyes said I should go, so out I went, tearing through people’s ‘Muzwezi’ fences for a short -cut and losing bits of my skin in the process.
It seemed such a long time before my neighbour opened enough of the door to show his face and chest, and after a quick explanation of my visit, he told me what leaves to gather and what to do with them.
I don’t know whether I thanked him or not, but like a mad person, I rushed back towards my house and past it towards the place where the tree grew.
Thorns tore at my fingers as I gathered the leaves, but I did not mind the pain; my son’s life was of prime importance. Time, only time mattered.
Perhaps my son was already dying, or dead.
After applying first aid on him with the pounded leaves, my neighbour reminded me of the nearby mechanic.
I went half walking and half running towards his house. I was already narrating my grief even before his wife greeted me.
If by some misfortune he refused to help or there was no fuel in the car, we would be done.
I prayed to God that far be the thought that such a thing  should ever come to pass.
On the way to hospital, my boy did not for a moment let us forget how terrible he felt, and I kept reassuring him that all would be well.
However, I was beginning to get very worried. His groaning was getting weaker and weaker as he held on tightly to his leg and turned and twisted.
In the general hospital consulting room, the doctor asked me if we had seen the snake.
In the dark! My heart sank even deeper, but he went ahead to attend to his patient for about 10 minutes.
His assurance that the boy would be all right, I tell you, was so comforting, It was about midnight and fireworks were exploding in the town. I saw my boy pull the bedcover over his chest.
“Do you feel cold?” I asked and he said yes.
I realised that he had stopped crying out for a while, but it would be a very painful Christmas season for him.
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