An Encounter with a Cobra on the Track in South Africa

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 Lying Still: A Cobra, a Boy on a Natal Farm in South Africa, and a Lesson in Waiting

Cobra crossing a farm track in Natal near a fallen bicycle, illustrating a childhood memory in Africa.


The Cobra on the Track

There are moments in childhood that remain with you, not because you chose them, but because they chose you.

This was one of them.

I had ridden out that day in search of my father, somewhere at the far reaches of the farm. From that distance, the land opened toward the great sweep of the Drakensberg, its presence both distant and immense, shaping the horizon in a way that made a boy feel both small and alive.

I do not remember finding him.

What I remember is the return.

The track ran downhill for a long stretch, the kind that invites a boy to trust speed more than judgment. I was on my bicycle, moving faster than I should have been, the ground uneven beneath me.

Then, suddenly, I lost control.

The front wheel hit a ditch.

The brakes failed.
The bicycle twisted.
And I came a cropper, thrown hard onto the track.

For a few moments, I lay there, winded and stunned, the sky too bright above me, the world reduced to the sharp awareness of breath and impact.

And then I saw it.

From the grass at the edge of the track, not more than a few feet away, a cobra was emerging.

It was not reacting to me.
It was not rushing.

It was simply following its path — intending to cross the track at precisely the place where I lay.

Everything became still.

I did not move.

There was no time for fear in the way we usually understand it. Only awareness of distance, of position, of the fragile space between its movement and my stillness.

The cobra lifted slightly as it crossed, its presence unmistakable. It had not yet flared fully, but it did not need to. There was an authority in its movement that required no display.

I knew, without thinking, that any sudden movement would change everything.

So I remained where I was.

Breathing carefully.
Watching.
Waiting.

The cobra passed within what felt like inches of my body, crossing the track as though I were simply part of the landscape. For a moment, our worlds occupied the same space — not in conflict, but in a kind of silent recognition.

Then it was gone.

Into the grass on the other side.

Only then did the world begin to return — sound, distance, the sense of being alone again. I gathered myself slowly, righted the bicycle, and made my way back, no longer carried by speed, but by something closer to respect.

A Reflection

Looking back, that moment was more than an encounter with danger.

It was an early lesson in stillness.

In learning that not every situation calls for action. That there are moments when the instinct to move must give way to the discipline of waiting.

Years later, I would come across the work of René Girard, and his description of what is often called the Scapegoat Theory, the way tension within a community can suddenly fix itself on a particular place or person.

In such moments, the impulse is to react.

But not everything that enters our path is directed at us.
And not every moment demands a response.

Sometimes the deeper wisdom lies in recognising what is unfolding — and allowing it to pass without becoming part of it.

That understanding came much later.

But perhaps it began there — on a Natal track, lying still, as a cobra made its way across my path.

From My Tribe to Yours


Some lives unfold between worlds, learning the language of both - I grew up in South Africa in a world far more complex than the one many people think they know. My life unfolded between cultures — from farms in the old Transvaal Province to KwaZulu-Natal, where I became fluent in Zulu, to working in townships around Durban during turbulent years and subsequently in a rural district in ministry during the final decade before South Africa’s democratic transition. Running quietly through those years was a journey of faith that eventually carried me far from Africa. What began as a five-year stay in the United Kingdom became an unintended exile, and today I live on the west coast of Scotland. My memoir, From My Tribe to Yours, is a personal letter across cultures — sharing the South Africa I experienced, that few in Western countries knew, from within. READ MORE:https://www.theafricanoddity.com/author-south-africa-memoir.html

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