The One With The Defeat Of The Rat (2/19/2013)

This past weekend was an exceptionally exciting one! For about 3 months now Dahlia and I have been engaged in a battle with a rat that had chosen to make our home his home as well.  I know it’s not very Tanzanian of us to kick someone out but we really don’t want a third roommate.  Anyway, in November we started noticing bites out of our food.  And apparently our rat was an inquisitive guy because he would eat not just one piece of produce but one bite out of each piece of produce.  A few days later we caught him in action and after much screaming and jumping onto the furniture we were eventually able to chase him out of the house.  “Gone,” we though.  If only life were that simple.  He was back the next day.  “Not a problem,” we though, “we are smarter than a rat.”  So we started covering all of our food at night.  To no avail.  The rat continued to join us each and every evening.  “Ok,” we though, “we will scrub down the kitchen.  Maybe he is just finding scraps on the floor.”  So with our squeaky clean kitchen and covered food we though peaceful nights would be restored.  And to an extent they were.  But somehow our furry enemy was still getting at our food.  He was smarter than we gave him credit for.  He was coming during the day when our food was uncovered.  Covering the food all day wasn’t an option because it would go bad before the next market day.  So we thought, and thought, and though.  And we came up with a fool proof (or so we thought at the time) plan.  We would hang the food in baskets from the rafters using laundry line, waxy and thin, there is no way he can climb down that.  So we set to work and now have suspended produce strategically hung to turn our kitchen into an obstacle course.  But we were bested again; evidently belaying down the line is no problem for our enemy.  (Although not all was lost because by hanging the produce we inadvertently solved our cockroach problem.)  Feeling defeated, we decided it was time for the rat to die.  So our next plan was for Dahlia to corner him and bludgeon him to death.  After 2 unsuccessful attempts (who knew how fast those things are, or that they can climb walls) we resorted to poisoning our food.  Three nights of leaving the bait out and we finally awoke to the glorious sight of a dead rat.  Victory at last!

As a side note, we asked what locals do to get rid of the rats. “Nothing.” Was the response given to us again and again.  Elizabeth said they often fall off the rafters into her bed while she is asleep.  She simply rolls over.