Lions, Tigers and Bears! Oh, My!

Actually its more like Jaguars, snakes and donkeys, but I believe the latter is equally frightening. No, this isn't an irrational fear. I run into snakes and packs of donkeys each day during my marathon training runs. I must say I was a bit nervous the first couple of times I set out-I had never run into so much wildlife and seeing snakes in the wild is a bit daunting. At this point I was still okay with the idea of running through the sugar fields and encountering them from time to time, until we found out about the jaguars.
Last week a student invited Kathryn and I to his village for lunch. He told us we would have to take bicycles because his village was about 15 KM away. Since we knew the principal had bikes, we didn't worry about it until the day came and we had to go and borrow them. Just as our luck would have it, the principal was out and we had no bikes. We decided that our best and only option would be a bike that had been sitting on our porch for what appears to be a few decades, growing a thick layer of dust, cobwebs. Already being a huge spectacle in Kadod, Kathryn and I attracted even more attention to ourselves while struggling to maintain balance on one bicycle.
As we began to more comfortable with our riding arrangement, we began to admire the scenery. Rural India is a beautiful place and I'm really lucky to have the opportunity to live in a place so beautiful. As we remarked on the beauty of the landscape and green plantations our student pedaling in front of us turned and said, "Yes Miss, Very Beautiful, but very very scary." We questioned him about it and he told us that many times as he rides to school and back every morning he sees many Jaguars and that they have a tendency to attack livestock and villagers. Upon hearing this, I began to pedal a bit faster. We spent a wonderful day in his village eating with our students, playing in the river and making many house calls. The story of the jaguars remained with me.
That week I continued my training routine of running in the early mornings before school. It starts off with passing by the hostel housing many of the male students. This morning I mentioned the story of the Jaguars as I passed by, and how I was a bit worried about running through the fields now that I knew there were jaguars lurking in the fields. My spoken English boys agreed and told me a story about his father being attacked on his farm . His family, with the help of a few neighbors beat the jaguar to death, but almost killing his father in the process. At that point it was too much, I decided they were messing with me and told them I didn't believe them.
To my surprise the next morning the students triumphantly entered class armed with a copy of the article describing the event from the local newspaper. They had even gone to the trouble of translating it to English so I would be able to understand it. I was amazed by the time they had taken to translate the article and bring it to me. I was having a pretty difficult week with many of my classes being taken over to prepare for exams, this act brightened my mood and renewed a sense of purpose.