A Peek In

And now I owe you all some pictures.  Blogs can seem dreadfully tedious on the surface if they lack ample visual material.  So without further ado....

Welcome to my humble abode!

View to the right.

View to the left.

Upon entering.

The garden just outside...looking melancholy and forlorn due to the drought, which is in a critical stage.

The water hole across the path...dry, obviously.

It's much more useful when there's water.

All the Animals Have Gone Crazy 2

Tsk tsk, and you thought I was finished...

Thursday night, I made the unwelcome discovery that a rat had been making itself at home in my dresser drawers.  I knew it was a rat, because he chewed open a bottle of lotion, not to mention ate a few of my corn seeds, and created general chaos in my drawers.  I was not very surprised, however, as I had been suspecting for quite sometime that a rat had made its home in the thatch roof.

Being already tired, I was not thrilled to have to go down to Manis and Judy's house to procure a rat trap, but the prospect of an unchecked rat was even less exciting.  

Not long after all was quiet and dark, I heard scuffling and nibbling.  Shining my flashlight, I was unable to discern anything.  After several attempts however, something ran out from under the dresser, climbed up the shovel leaning against my wall (just never mind why there is a shovel in my room), jumped from the shovel to the keyboard, from the keyboard to the wall, and after climbing a short distance up the wall, mounted on the curtain rod so as to leap up into the thatch.  At first sighting, it appeared rather small.  It did not seem to be entering the drawer where I had first set the trap, so I moved it to the next drawer, where I saw evidence it was continuing its feast on my bottle of lotion.  

Flashlight extinguished, I waited.  Sleep was impossible at this point.  Predictably, I heard it again a short time later, shined my light, and proceeded to observe what was most undoubtedly a rat---a large rat---emerge from under my dresser and follow the same route I had observed earlier.

This was insupportable.  It simply must be terminated.  Mice are detestable enough; but rats are unforgivably despicable.

I moved the trap once more, from the drawer to the base of the wall where the rat apparently had the habit of making his route.

At 2:45 A.M.--after no sleep worth speaking of; any sleep I did have was full of dreams of being confined to my little room watching the rat trap--I was startled by the snapping of the trap.  However, the ensuing sounds seemed to indicate that the rat was not in fact caught, but had mounted the piano in its usual escape route.

Frustrated, I turned on the flashlight.  To my consternation, not only was the rat not it the trap, but it was clinging, just hanging on the curtain rod, obviously injured, but very UN-dead.  

I hardly need mention that it is not enjoyable to get out of bed at 3 AM, grab a shovel, and attempt to bludgeon a large, hanging rat to death by the ghostly light of your flashlight.  Not only that, but I was unsuccessful.  After my first swing, the rat fell and began to run.  I hit at it several more times, but to no avail; precision was difficult, not to mention noisy, with the shovel.  The rat ran behind my desk, and ensconced itself between the wall and the back of the shelves, where it could not be reached. 

What ensued was a game of horrid game of watching and banging around.  I had increased my arsenal of weapons by a curtain rod and a sandal.  After several vain attempts by both the rat and myself, I finally pushed the bookshelf against the wall as hard as I could.  By peering in at the side, I could see that the rat was squished, perhaps dead, but at least held in place.

I decided it was time to get back in bed.  It was now 4 AM.

4:30--Rat-evidently not squished enough-makes another run for it, but cannot get away, due to the removal of the curtain rod.  He falls to the floor and runs under the dresser.

5:15--Rat makes a surprise dash out from under the dresser, and, before I can make a move, climbs a plastic wire protector to escape on the opposite side of the room from where it had previously had the habit of entering.  This is only a nightstand's distance from where I am lying in bed.

*************************************************************************

The next night, the rat trap was strategically placed at the top of the wall, under the thatch, in the exact location where the rat had ascended.

12:15 AM--The trap scares me out of sleep with it's sickening snap.  As I suspected may happen (but hoped would not), the struggling rat then sent the trap--rat and all--down from the wall onto the floor with a terrific clatter.  The rat continued to flail about--again, a nightstand away from my head--even after I hit at it twice with a sandal.  When it finally stopped struggling, I triumphantly (although not enthusiastically...I am carrying a dead rat, after all) emptied the trap outside...

....and that is the end....

                                                                       ....for now.

(Except, of course, that there was also a dead rat lying on the floor of my office this morning...must have eaten poison.)

All the Animals Have Gone Crazy

Apologies first:  I am reprehensibly late in my updates, and I hope I may be forgiven when I state that I have quite an arsenal of them in storage. 


To further encourage your swift pardon, I will share first with you what is most likely to elicit your pity also (devious, am I not?).


The Plateau being a rural province, it is only natural that the animal population far exceeds the people.  Animal husbandry is one of the chief means of survival, so we are surrounded by the usual goats, sheep, donkeys, pigs, and chickens.  The last in that list have made themselves particularly odious to me.  They are noisy, dirty, stupid, and destructive.  I have utterly given up trying to plant anything in the yard with them around...they will either scratch it up or eat it up.  My grandmother made an obvious attempt to ruffle my feathers (yes, pun intended...sneer if you like) by sending me a poem enumerating the laudable qualities of chickens above all other pets.  However, I am convinced that the author was merely trying to get rid of all his, and so wrote such an advertisement.


Before I move on, I must also decry the incomprehensible decision made to tell children that the donkey says "hee haw."  The syllables themselves may be correct, but they are pronounced in such a mild manner.  Let me personally testify that donkeys make one of the worst noises in the animal kingdom.  That's why it's called "braying," I suppose; the word itself sounds obnoxious.

Not only are domestic animals quite prolific, but so are the less desirable ones.  A great deal of time and energy is spent in daily (I'm sorry, did you catch the DAILY part?) combating mice, rats, ants, flies, cockroaches, and other unsavory critters.  


Here is an example of one rather singular day (although by no means completely unusual).  I woke early at the sound of something rustling around in the thatch roof above my room.  Perhaps it was just a bird, but it didn't make the usual "bird-rustling" sound.  So, I shrugged it off, and went to the house to help Judy with breakfast.   We groaned at our all-too-usual discovery that there had been mouse visits during the night.  As I lifted things out of the sink to prepare to wash the dishes, I was startled by a rather large millipede.  For those of you who always got centipedes and millipedes confused in school, here is its likeness:

Why this ridiculous person is holding it, I have no idea, as they can bite rather painfully.  It must have crawled up the drain.  After several unsuccessful attempts to kill it with the fly swatter, it was deployed to a better life by the bottom of an empty container.


Breakfast finished, I began work in my office, only to be irritated to distraction by the sound of an unhappy chicken outside my window.  I went out to investigate.  The noises were coming from within a large box attached to the side of the house to hold the inverter batteries.  Knowing that the chickens have a habit of laying eggs in there, I stuck my head at the space between the door and the roof to see what was going on.  Without warning, a chicken flew out with one of its horrendous chicken shrieks, smacked me in the face, and knocked me on the ground!


Soon after I returned to my office, Judy came running in in a panic.  There was a live rat in her closet, being held at bay by Madame Obert (who works in the house).  I grabbed a broom and stood outside the closet.  Madame Tiferne (who cooks lunch for us) joined us with sandal ready in hand.  Judy stood outside the closed door with a broom, in case the rat tried to escape that way.  Needless to say, there was a gorgeous row of banging brooms and sandals and shrieks before the rat finally met his demise.


It was then time to go out to the depot and go over the day's food purchases in the market with Mme Tiferne.  What should I discover there amidst the manioc?  A mouse with its head apparently bitten off.  Who knows.


One would hope that the days adventures would mercifully come to an end at this point, but it wasn't over yet.  We almost perpetually are setting mouse traps, which usually do their job.  For some reason, on this same day, in the afternoon, not one, but TWO mice were caught in the trap by the foot (separate traps, separate times).  This, of course, means that the job must be finished by one's sandal, and I was the only person available at the time to do it.  By that I mean, that when I applied to two young men walking by, they jumped out of the way a safe distance (this is in no way representative of all young men...I believe they were rather startled, and may have obliged me had I implored them).


My mother, once I had related the days events to her in an e-mail, indulged her humor by copying this photo into her response:

I hope this is photo-shopped, for the alternative is that someone collected a bunch of dead mice and strategically placed them.


Happily, that was the last of it.