The Gringos' First Big Reptile Encounter

A couple nights ago, maybe Tuesday? (None of us really keeps track of time or even day around here) I was washing dishes after dinner.  The kitchen is an outdoor structure simply enclosed by a mesh material for "walls" and the sink over looks the duck and chicken pen, although there is no electricity so you can only see as much as your head lamp can scan.  Anyways, I hear a horrible, painful sound come from one of the chickens.  The five of us run over to find the chicken lying on its back bleeding from its stomach and Large boa constrictor slinking around it. We watch it for a few minutes then leave it alone to see if it will eat the chicken.  (Long side story short, we need to get rid of these chickens, hence why we did not try to save it).  We come back and the snake has made no attempt at eating the chicken; we are not surprised because the board is only about 5 foot and this chicken is HUGE.  But a baby duck has entered the pen and we watch it run around and actually run over the top of the snake.  We must have scared the snake too much by then with all of our lights because it makes no attempt to get the duck.  In the end, the boa never got a meal and we watched it slither away into the plantain fields.  A good reminder not to walk around at night. (Disclosure: the chicken was fine. Turns out it was so fat that the snake probably bit nothing but fat).