2 Weeks ago, one of the women in our literacy classes out in the Amolatar District, was walking home from class when a poisonous snake bit her. She was alone, and no one found her before she died of the snake bite. Her burial was just a couple of days ago. This week, we held a Teacher Training Workshop in the same district, near the same area, in Agweno Onywal. It was just completed today. Yesterday, our lead trainer, Peter, as usual on the second day of the training, taught the student teachers about the preparation and use of charcoal for diarrhea, wounds and snake bites. They were extremely attentive and happy to know that they could use simple charcoal for so many uses. Not even 2 hours later as one female student, Ketty Obang, walked home, she heard a lady screaming that she had been bitten by a snake. It was a very aggressive snake as it tried to bite her a second time, but caught only her dress.
Immediately Ketty ran to a nearby dwelling where, miraculously, there was a home where they make charcoal. Other people carried the woman, Naibyata, to the place where Ketty was already pounding the charcoal into a powder. She then mixed it with water and made a poultice, putting it directly on the wound, while others tied a cloth around Naibyata’s upper leg to slow the blood flow to the rest of her body. Every 20-30 minutes they changed the poultice. Ketty said she changed the poultice 6 times and the pain and swelling began to subside. They did not take her to a hospital as it is 3 hours away and there is no anti venom in this area. The next day she was walking with no pain or swelling. Her husband Ebitu came to the Teacher Training Workshop to thank Hands Across Nations for teaching people about charcoal and saving his wife’s life. It was God’s mercy and miracle that His timing brought the training at exactly the right time to the right person and put her in the right place to save Naibyata’s life.
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