In this episode Manchán sits down with Fortunate from Zimbabwe. Fortunate grew up in a village in a mountainous region of Zimbabwe with many dangerous snakes, ‘All the mambas that you've ever heard about are in those mountains: black mamba, green mamba, white mamba. And we've got baboons - when we plough our maize they come to steal from us.’

She insists that snakes aren’t dangerous, ‘sometimes when you go to the field to cultivate with horses you might step on a snake, but they realise it’s a mistake and they won't bite you. They will flee. But if you really attack it it will bite, and even follow you, and kill you.’ She says that a small child can touch and play with a very poisonous snake ‘but the snake will not bite that child’.

She has fond memories of harvest parties when ‘all the villagers would come together. They would kill cattle and we would eat a lot and celebrate the summer season.’ They’d also offer prayers for a good harvest, and for suitable rains. This communal aspect of life in Zimbabwe suffered under colonisation, and Fortunate sees a similar impact in Ireland, though ‘the Irish are still very social. They have come together to support me, through thick and thin.’

Home Stories was funded by Creative Ireland alongside the county councils of Laois and Westmeath.