HE LAUGHED AT SALVATION

Kipsigis Christian story

translated by Richard Chowning

The story is told of a woman who told her husband she was going to the river to wash her clothes. She reminded him to keep a eye on their baby boy. As most fathers he did not know what types of problems the boy could get into, so, he paid little mind to the child. The infant crawled twenty yards away for the house, and fell into a grass covered hole that had been dug for a well, but abandoned because no water was found.

After awhile the father decided to check on his son. He searched inside the hut. He was not there. He looked outside and to the back of the hut. He was not there. Then he called the entire village to help him find the boy. It was not long before they found the boy down in the hole. Some villagers remembered that a python had been seen down the hole a few weeks ago.

They pointed flashlights down the hole. The boy was seemingly uninjured from the fall. When the beam fell on the python, the villagers gasp. But there was some hope. The snake was asleep.

They had to hurry. A rope was tied around an iron pot and lowered it slowly down the shaft in hope that the boy would climb into it. The boy watched the pot as it came closer to him. He was fascinated by it. When it got close to him, he pushed it with his hand and it brushed against the wall. The child laughed. The python woke at the boy's laugh and devoured swallowed him.