Man-eating rat

Written Monday, 4 August 2008

A few days ago I was sitting in the Peace Corps house in Tamba,
watching a movie, when I felt something bite my toe. Of course I
jumped and yelled, so by the time I got around to looking down to see
what it was, it had run away. I thought it was a mouse – our house is
overrun with them. But a little later, as I was finishing my movie
(with my feet pulled out of reach on my chair), it came out and hung
out long enough for me to get a good look at it – a rat! Gross,
gross, gross.

Some of the other volunteers had recently said that there was a rat in
the house now, but I thought they were exaggerating and it was a big
mouse. But this was definitely a rat. Luckily its bite hadn't broken
my skin, or I would have been high-tailing it to Dakar to get myself
some shots for rabies and bubonic plague and anything else I could
get.

When one of the boys came to Tamba yesterday I told him about the rat
and asked him to try to buy some poison or something and kill it. We
hadn't managed to find strong enough poison in any of the stores
nearby yet, but this morning when I woke up he told me that he had
trapped the rat in our garbage can. And then a little later our
security guard killed it for us.

So, the current score is: Volunteers: 1. Tamba house rodents:
approximately 1000. But I've gotten pretty used to the mice now; if
we can keep the house rat-free, I think I'll be happy. The war is
still on with the devil-cat in my hut, though.