New Delhi, Sept. 26: The world today got a chance to hiss some more at the Commonwealth Games preparations after the discovery of a snake yesterday in an unoccupied room meant for foreign athletes.

The reptile, a western stereotype for India’s backwardness and “mystique”, struck the jinxed Games Village with perfect timing, completing the picture created by stray dogs and mosquitoes that has prompted some foreign delegates to dub the place “filthy and unliveable”.

It was South African high commissioner Harris Mbulelo Mejeke who revealed the discovery of the snake in a room at the residential tower, earmarked for athletes from his country, who are yet to arrive.

“We can’t go and stay till things are fixed up. We have very grave concerns. If snakes are found we can’t ask our teams to stay there. The basement was full of water and the staircase was damp,” he said, adding his country would not withdraw from the Games.

Although Mejeke said the snake “was a threat to the lives of our athletes”, it could not be ascertained if the reptile was poisonous. Experts said the flood plains along the Yamuna, on whose banks the Game Village stands, is the home of two non-venomous snakes, the checkered keelback and the Indian rat snake.

Mejeke, whose country is known for its wildlife, wasn’t even sure about the snake’s nationality. “I don’t know whether it was an Indian snake,” he said.

If this raised the inviting possibility of suggesting a foreign hand, no conspiracy theorist had picked it up till this evening.

The smaller teams like Jersey, Cameroon and Trinidad and Tobago, though, seemed to have no complaints about the Games Village.

“We are happy.... There are no cleanliness-related issues. Things are getting better every day,” Moundi Bouba, a Cameroon team official, said.

“We moved here four days back and I’m enjoying every minute,” said Dianne Huddlestone, wife of the Jersey chef de mission.

Former athlete Milkha Singh said if foreigners did not like the Village, they could stay in hotels. “I too have been to a number of countries. Sometimes the arrangements were not very good but we never made such a fuss,” he told PTI. “I think India is giving in to the demands of its guests a little too much.”

It wasn’t just the foreigners, though. A member of the Indian women’s table tennis team shivered as she said: “After the discovery of the snake, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.”

The snake’s appearance could perhaps have been avoided if the organisers had listened to environmentalists who had moved court to try and stop the Village being built on the Yamuna’s banks.

“The land close to rivers provides ideal habitats for frog-eating and toad-eating snakes and the rat snake,” said Anil Khaire, chairman of the Indian Herpetological Society. “The checkered keelback and rat snake are non-venomous but have been known to bite when they sense a threat.”

He said that when the river overflows its banks or when rainwater accumulates, such snakes flow in with the water.

An official said the civic body had last week posted five snake charmers to the Games Village, offering them Rs 1,000 for every snake they catch. Now all that the Games need is a fakir doing the rope trick.