Written Saturday July 31, 2010
Got my laptop out in my hut. Crazy. Decided I’m going to use it until the battery dies, so it’s blog post typing time. It’s been 3 months since I’ve been on a computer. My fingers don’t quite remember what to do.
I’m sitting here with my brand new kitty in my lap. She’s teeny, 7 weeks old and ridiculously adorable. Her name is still tentative so that will be to follow sometime. I’m really excited to have a new kitty companion, and we love each other already. I’ve been awaiting her arrival since day 1 in my hut so she can scare away my rats. i HATE rats. Nshatemwa sana koswe. Nalitemwa sana pushi. I really like cats.
So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve never lived with rats before. Maybe this says something about my life that previously my only rat reference was Templeton from Charlotte’s Web. Now, I have several rat stories:
First night in village, they ate a hole in the side of my watermelon. No big deal, just cut that part off and eat the rest.
Rats make A LOT of noise.
Rats like to use mosquito nets to climb up and down from the roof to the floor. Less than enjoyable when one is sleeping under such a mosquito net.
First trip out of the village (week 2) was largely prompted by my desire to purchase rat poison, and get my packages from the post office of course.
If a rat only eats some poison, and not a lot, then it doesn’t die until it climbs somewhere in my roof. Can’t find those until they start smelling. Awesome. Result #1: Maggots in my house, including one, quite mysteriously as I always keep my mosquito net tucked under the mattress, in my bed. Result #2: Dead rat juice (blood?) dripping from the dead rat in my roof onto the corner of my bed. Wasn’t planning on doing laundry that day. FYI-washing a mosquito net with lots of soap because you’re freaked out about dead rat blood leads to the African bush version of the overflowing suds in the washing machine because the kids put too much soap, a la Brady Bunch. Mosquito net=excellent bubble maker. (One rat did die outside on the ground. Praise Jesus.)
Rats really like groundnuts (peanuts to you in Americaland). The Chief gave me a huge bag of groundnuts when I went to meet him. Sweet, but I couldn’t exactly fit all those in my food buckets. My attempts at keeping the rats from eating them failed miserably. I’ll add a pic if I get a chance. I got real tired of sweeping up groundnuts shells and rat poop. As I was sweeping or listening to the rats crunch groundnut shells, I would think about how they were getting fat and happy on my groundnuts. This inevitably made me sing to myself Templeton’s song about how the fair is a smorgasbord.
So I was left with quite a clever rat. Wouldn’t eat poison groundnuts. Got my tomato one night and ate a big chunk out of it. So I said, ok rat, you eat my tomato, you’re gonna eat poison tomato. Put a bunch of poison on the spot it had eaten. Nope, the rat moved the tomato, turned it over, and ate the other, non-poisoned side.
Got my laptop out in my hut. Crazy. Decided I’m going to use it until the battery dies, so it’s blog post typing time. It’s been 3 months since I’ve been on a computer. My fingers don’t quite remember what to do.
I’m sitting here with my brand new kitty in my lap. She’s teeny, 7 weeks old and ridiculously adorable. Her name is still tentative so that will be to follow sometime. I’m really excited to have a new kitty companion, and we love each other already. I’ve been awaiting her arrival since day 1 in my hut so she can scare away my rats. i HATE rats. Nshatemwa sana koswe. Nalitemwa sana pushi. I really like cats.
So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve never lived with rats before. Maybe this says something about my life that previously my only rat reference was Templeton from Charlotte’s Web. Now, I have several rat stories:
First night in village, they ate a hole in the side of my watermelon. No big deal, just cut that part off and eat the rest.
Rats make A LOT of noise.
Rats like to use mosquito nets to climb up and down from the roof to the floor. Less than enjoyable when one is sleeping under such a mosquito net.
First trip out of the village (week 2) was largely prompted by my desire to purchase rat poison, and get my packages from the post office of course.
If a rat only eats some poison, and not a lot, then it doesn’t die until it climbs somewhere in my roof. Can’t find those until they start smelling. Awesome. Result #1: Maggots in my house, including one, quite mysteriously as I always keep my mosquito net tucked under the mattress, in my bed. Result #2: Dead rat juice (blood?) dripping from the dead rat in my roof onto the corner of my bed. Wasn’t planning on doing laundry that day. FYI-washing a mosquito net with lots of soap because you’re freaked out about dead rat blood leads to the African bush version of the overflowing suds in the washing machine because the kids put too much soap, a la Brady Bunch. Mosquito net=excellent bubble maker. (One rat did die outside on the ground. Praise Jesus.)
Rats really like groundnuts (peanuts to you in Americaland). The Chief gave me a huge bag of groundnuts when I went to meet him. Sweet, but I couldn’t exactly fit all those in my food buckets. My attempts at keeping the rats from eating them failed miserably. I’ll add a pic if I get a chance. I got real tired of sweeping up groundnuts shells and rat poop. As I was sweeping or listening to the rats crunch groundnut shells, I would think about how they were getting fat and happy on my groundnuts. This inevitably made me sing to myself Templeton’s song about how the fair is a smorgasbord.
So I was left with quite a clever rat. Wouldn’t eat poison groundnuts. Got my tomato one night and ate a big chunk out of it. So I said, ok rat, you eat my tomato, you’re gonna eat poison tomato. Put a bunch of poison on the spot it had eaten. Nope, the rat moved the tomato, turned it over, and ate the other, non-poisoned side.
A few days later, I had a rather flexible carrot that I decided wouldn’t be good to eat which I forgot about and left on the floor. Next morning of course found that the rat had gotten it, buy my rat is picky. Didn’t just eat the carrot, peeled it first. When possible, there’s a picture to prove it.
Cross your fingers, now that I have my akapushi (baby cat), I’m done with rats.
No comments:
Post a Comment