Reptiles bring bad luck :(

Our focus was on all reptiles of course as that was our primary task… in one of the transects Fia Dana suddenly yelled Bibi Lava. He saw a snake and as we hadn’t seen any snakes at that point yet I was pretty happy and went to see it. Unfortunately he didn’t catch the snake as he, like pretty much every Madagsy, is afraid of snakes. I was a little sad and thought it’d for sure be lost as it was in a huge pile of old branches stuff, but in the next second I saw a movement and grabbed for it. Fortunately there are no venomous snakes in Madagascar so I was safe to just grab it. Fia Dana looked at me as if I completely lost it… how could I possibly touch a snake. Let me explain a little closer.
In the evenings we showed our reptile identification book to the people and asked them if they knew the different reptiles, if they have seen them in the area and if so, if they can give us some hint as to where to find them. We were especially keen to find a boa, but when we opened the page with the snake pictures they jumped back in horror. They are extremly scared of snakes and boas in particular. I do not know why and did not manage to find out, but they are scared of a fair few things. They also believe that chameleons bring bad luck which explains why they looked at me as if I had gone completely crazy whenever I found a chameleon and showed it to everyone with a huuuuuuuuge smile on my face. I always took heaps of photos and was so happy to have found them. To me chameleons are one of the coolest creatures on earth. Another animal they are scared of are Aye-Ayes. In some areas of Madagascar they have to move and burn down the village if an Aye-Aye has walked into the village. I just wish they would leave the animals alone, but unfortunately especially in the cities they kill all snakes and chameleons. :(