The stories are true. Dan captured a cobra in our yard. He showed me the snake (which all of our Balinese friends scampered away from), and as I admonished him for picking up a snake he couldn’t identify in a land where poisonous snakes are common – the beastie flared its hood. I admit I squealed and started in the opposite direction, yelling over my shoulder that he was mad, absolutely mad.
Back in the safety of our room, I ripped the Balinese reptile book off the shelf and flew to the index. Crap. There are cobras in Bali, of both the spitting and kingly varieties. Flipping quickly to the demarcated pages, I scanned the pictures. Hearing heavy breathing, my attention was drawn to the doorway where Dan had appeared, looking triumphant. In his hands was a clear plastic Tupperware container - inside was the coiled, displeased-looking cobra specimen.
Much to my dismay, Dan of course had a plan for said cobra. For two nights, it tangled upon itself in the container on Dan’s bedside dresser, next to his wallet, cell phone, books on medicine and philosophy, and of course, his head. I asked him to put it in the cupboard so as not to frighten the lady who cleans our flat each morning, and he obliged – smiling I think, on the inside that I had temporarily abandoned my demands that he release the creature at once, on the opposite side of the yard, over the wall and into the rice field.
On the second morning after its capture Dan was ready for the cobra photo shoot. Neighbors stopped, jaws dropped as he carried the clear container out into the courtyard, his camera slung around his neck. All portions of this scenario have become standard to our once curious neighbors, except of course for the contents of this particular container. They clucked their tongues, shivered, and shook their heads, eyes dancing incredulously between the container and my dismayed face on the porch. I couldn’t bring myself to watch –snakes and I coexist on a civil, respectful basis generally, but this one tripped my creep-out button.
After moments of spastic flailing in my peripheral vision, Tupperware being wielded like a shield, camera snapping and “Whoa! His hoods really open now!! Look Beth, look!!...” - one of the two things I dreaded most to hear rung out in the courtyard – “Beth, can you come help me!?”
Wrangling the snake with one hand he thrust the camera in my direction, asking me to snap a few frames with his macro lens while he worked on agitating it enough to flare its hood more fully for the camera. “I think it knows now I’m not trying to hurt it, so it’s not reacting threateningly anymore…I need something…like maybe one of the cats…” his eyes scanned the courtyard as he toppled the tub up-side-down onto the snake to contain it momentarily. Finding no feline accomplices at hand, his eyes returned to me, clutching the camera and staring at the container, lest the creature emerge unexpectedly from beneath it and break for my direction. I could see his mind working quickly, calculating the number of shots he’d snapped, determining whether he’d captured his proof or not, wishing I hadn’t scoffed when he’d set his snake-wrangling-hook on the suitcase back in Vermont – “Babe, I doubt that will make it through customs… no it’s not a carry-on item…you do realize the snakes there can kill you right?”.
“I think it’s time to let him go…” he said with a sigh, his calculations complete. He gently collected the now riled snake into the Tupperware a final time, and crossing the courtyard deposited him in the rice paddies on the other side of the compound’s outer wall.
It wasn’t until I articulated the story to another person for the first time, after the cobra’s epic release, that it began to sink in how bizarre a scenario this had all been. A cobra had spent two nights in our bedroom in a Tupperware container on the night stand.

Last night we went to dinner with friends and the story was shared in full animation. I am still cringing at the Komodo Island (home of the famed Komodo Dragons) documentary adventure proposed by our journalist friend upon hearing the tale in full over dinner – “it will put Dan on the map” he’d said smiling – “I’ll run it past my contacts at TIME…hopefully get our travel expenses covered – next time call me when he catches a snake – I didn’t understand the “I have cobra” text he sent me the other day…”
Some small part of my brain revolted at the suggestion of “next time” inour friend’s proposal, but Dan was beaming. I sighed. Right. Next time. And so the adventure continues.

November Fourth

We left early in the morning for the coastal town of Sanur to catch the ferry to the tiny island of Lembongan off the south east coast of Bali. The boat was full to the gills with people and supplies, and the hour-long journey was quite something. Nearly everyone on board got sea-sick about 40 minutes in as the ocean rolled tumultuously beneath us. It was worth every sweaty, nauseous, terrible moment. The island and its waters were absolutely breathtaking.

Moments after we climbed out into the surf to reach the shore, we received the call that our friend Meisha’s waters had broken, and she was running a temperature. The next boat off the island was at 3 pm, 6 hours later, and there we stood, I among her designated Doulas, and two midwives from her birth team. Back in Ubud, she labored with her husband, and two others of her birthing fleet, a close friend who is a Labour & Delivery Nurse, and another of her midwives.
With nothing for us to do but get there as soon as we could, we took in the day on the island. We chartered a small craft out past the break and snorkeled in the coral reef. It was absolutely amazing. We ate at small warungs on the beach, and snapped photo after photo of the beautiful views before us.

When three o’clock arrived we boarded the “speed ferry” back to Sanur. A fiberglass shell of a speed boat with three giant motors, she ushered us back in a mere 25 minutes – no sea-sickness among the lot of us – though it was quite something to slam through the waves at full throttle, I am certain we caught air a dozen times despite the 20 people on board.

Our friend Eddy was waiting on shore as we splashed through the surf past the swarm of entrepreneurs offering to carry folks from the boat to the dry sand for a dollar or two, and we were off for Ubud.

We tumbled out of the van at Bumi Sehat and rushed in to the laboring room where Meisha was still hard at work after several rounds of intravenous antibiotics. The decision was made to transport to Denpasar to the Women and Children’s Hospital, in light of her fever that was still intact after nearly ten hours.

The mad dash to the hospital, 40 minutes away in the Bumi Sehat van was surreal. Pagi, the Bumi driver sped through the streets, swerving around motorbikes, dumptrucks and Bali dogs as we raced. I sat in the middle seat of the van with Meisha, my arm around her waist, eyes locked with hers, forehead to forehead breathing together as she worked through contraction after contraction. The backseat held her husband, Jason, and Sylvia the midwife acted as a human IV pole, massaging the bag of antibiotics that ran into Meisha’s veins. In the front seat Ilu the student midwife and Sommer our Labour and Delivery Nurse shared a seat as Pagi urged the van onward – the yellow lights flashing on the roof running off of power from the cigarette lighter. Traffic came to a standstill, Barong parade passed us on our right. Traffic crawled. Meisha labored on.
We arrived at the hospital and rushed Meisha in. The doctor checked her progress and determined that a caesarean was needed to get baby Simone out and on her own course of antibiotics just in case whatever started the fever in Meisha was affecting the baby as well. At 9 pm, Simone was born. Healthy and absolutely beautiful, she weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces. Exhausted and deliriously happy we celebrated with the Mentos Jason had in his pocket, and waited for Meisha to be moved into the recovery room – pressing our faces against the glass of the nursery to see Simone. Jacinta, a midwife in our party, helped Meisha express some milk for Simone while she was in recovery. We snapped pictures feverishly as Jason fed Simone for the first time, with a syringe of Meisha’s milk. The love in the room was absolutely electric.
All was well. I cannot imagine a better day. At midnight, I crawled into bed with Dan, telling him of the birthing adventure. “I can’t not do this”, I told him, “I know…” he said and smiled as we drifted off to sleep.