After the Van Died

On Tuesday night, our van died.  I was working late at work and got a knock on the door of my classroom from one of the Dalat guards to let me know that the alarm lights were blinking on our van.  I was about to leave anyway to head home so I used that as an excuse to quickly tidy up my class and go home to bed.  Garth had called an hour or so before on the phone to let me know he was heading off to bed.  I went to start our van and even as I turned the key in the ignition I could hear the engine losing power as it was trying to turn over and start; sure enough, when I investigated, one of the doors hadn't quite been closed properly and it had been enough to drain the battery.  It meant a 15 minute walk home in the dark; I didn't want to wake Garth.  We would have to deal with the van the next day.

I am a pretty confident walker in the dark from all my university and working days when I used to do so but I have to admit I did have some trepidation because it is a different environment than Canada, I was called on it a previous time by another teacher who disagreed that I should do that, and it was pretty late.  I was about halfway home when a large passenger van coming from the opposite direction stopped right beside me, about 4 feet away on the opposite side of the road.  I got a little more scared.  I noticed though that the man driving was by himself, and because the steering wheel is on the opposite side of a vehicle here than it is in Canada, he was on the far side of the vehicle and couldn't just open his door and reach for me.  All the driver did was just stop and stay there in the middle of the road.  I kept on walking even faster the opposite direction toward home.  I went about 20 - 30 steps when a dog barking crazily came charging at me.  We had been warned about dogs in our orientation - and told to carry a large stick to ward them off - and we had experienced a few who barked a lot but not like this.  We have large sticks outside the door of our house for when we go for walks but of course I was coming from school.  I had a large purse and started swinging it at the dog to keep it away from me but it kept barking and coming at me.  I just kept swinging my purse and walking as fast as I could to get away from where the dog was. I also crossed over to the other side of the road in case the driver of the van came back so I would once again be on the opposite side from the direction he would be coming from.  I was really quite scared by this point, but still had about a quarter of my distance to go before I would be home.  

Sure enough, I heard a vehicle coming up behind me and it was the same driver and van, who again stopped right beside me but this time rolled down his window.  He was a man about in his 40's or 50's and he started to talk to me.  I could not understand him at first because I was really scared and because his English accent was a little hard to understand, and because I didn't want to get too close to his van to hear him.  But then I realized that he was telling me that where he had stopped before about four feet away from me, there had been a python on the road between me and his vehicle and he had stopped to presumably make sure I was going to be O.K.  Holding out his hands as wide as he could he showed me how long it had been.  My fear left me as I realized God had protected me through this stranger.  Maybe even that had been why the dog had been acting like that.  I praised God the rest of the way home.

And Garth wasn't even upset with me that the van was dead.

Here is a link to an articles about another python in Malaysia:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060915-python-ewe.html

Thankfully, the town mentioned - Kampung Jabor - is on the opposite side of Malaysia from where we are.