Oh Rats!

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."
Karl Marx in "Theses On Feuerbach" (1845)

So the quote has nothing to do with this post, but just a thought.

I hate mice. I have always hated mice. It is a fear I acquired thanks to my mother, and perhaps reading a few too many times about Little Albert (although the Little Albert rat sounds like a nice friendly, white lab rat. Is this correct? Because that sounds so much better than Malian rats.) in psychology classes. But I hate them (and I hate writing sentences that begin with conjunctions in most cases, but I'm doing it for emphasis so deal). Hate them. So guess who visited me one fateful evening about two weeks ago?
I was in my room minding my own business because it was raining out and I need some time to myself. I love when it rains because I can escape to my room and my family doesn't just think I am avoiding them. However, I kind of like Malian TV these days so I go sit inside their house and they pull the cable and the TV inside (normally we sit outside and put the TV on a plastic chair with a broken leg, and last week the TV fell when the broken leg was folded funny and didn't work for two days. Seeing how devastated they were made me notice just one more similarity some Malians and Americans are.). At any rate, I was sitting in my room, reading a book by flashlight when my host mom brought me dinner. My host mom had told me about five times (to make sure I heard) to just leave the bowls in my room for the night so I didn't have to go out in the rain. I thanked her a bunch, she blessed me for the night, yadda yadda. I sat on the floor on top of my pillow, reading my book and eating my rice and sauce, minding my own business.
After finishing my rice, I set the two bowls on the island in my front room. I was going to sit down in my chair, and I heard something in the kitchen. I don't know why I was brave enough to see what it was. I usually get cockroaches and these annoying termites at night so that when I come home from watching TV and having dinner with my family, I get to walk around stomping on little critters for half an hour. I was shining my flashlight around when I saw it. A big, dirty, brown haired Malian RAT. It was as surprised to see me as I was to see it. I jumped in the air, danced around for a second, and then ran to my bed, and tucked my mosquito net in (I will not tell you what fate that mosquito net has saved some people from, but it is by far one of my most prized possessions).
I sat there weighing my options. I could go to my host family's house and inform them of the rat, and they would kill it. Plenty of people had rats in their houses during home stay, and I was always delighted to hear how their family would go in the room with sticks and beat it to death. The problem with that option was that the mouse was closer to the door than I was and my shoes were by the door. I would never squash a rat, but I would feel so much safer walking around with shoes on if there was a rat in my house. The other option was to stay in my mosquito net for the rest of the night and hope it went away when the sun came up or I would at least be braver (more brave) to confront it in daylight. It was only 8 though, and the rain and the water I drank was not going to allow for option two though so I decided to put on my brave hat and attempt to go to my host family's house.
Part of the problem with visiting my host family was that I didn't know the word for mouse. I considered grabbing my dictionary on the run to the door, but I was in no mood for that kind of bravery. It sounded like too much fun for one night so I ran out the door as quick as I could. Everyone at my house was inside except for my host mom. I informed her that, “Bagan fitini be n ka so kono.” There is a small animal in my house. She thought this was the funniest thing ever and laughed at me repeating bagan over and over to herself on the walk to my house. I agreed to laugh along if it meant karma would kill the rat in a few minutes.
We went in my house. I have to admit I am partially to blame for its presence in the first place because I had just bought a sack of rice that day and it was sitting on the floor. There were also several black sacks sitting on the floor. The mouse happened to be hiding in or under one so my host mom did not see it when she was looking. I saw it though, shown my flashligh on it, and covered my eyes because I hate them. I was standing behind the island and she and the rat were on the other side together. I guess when I lit it up with the flashlight it got scared and ran outside.
My host mom didn't see anything and thought I was psychotic. I said, “No, I will not stand for this,” and went to get my dictionary. It wasn't in the Bambara-English dictionary- that thing is so worthless. All I know from that thing is how to call someone a worthless person with at least 15 words. I found it in my French-English dictionary though, and fortunately the word translated nicely and she understood what I was saying. It's souris if you're interested. She said, okokokokok, and tried to explain to me that I should just shine my flashlight on it and it would get scared and that the rat would never hurt me. Like hell a rat would never hurt me. I do not want to get bitten by a rat and then have to bike to the main road, grab a bus to Bamako, and then get a rabies shot. (Did I mention that I hate rats?)
She was convinced that all was well and decided to leave. We moved my boxes and sacks off of the floor and I felt better too. She left, and I heard the stupid thing again! Now I was a mixture of ticked off and scared. Fortunately she came back to my house for some reason. She tried to say something to me, but I immediately interrupted her and told her the mouse had returned (mouse, not small animal this time. I guess that is one way to learn). We looked all over, but I didn't see it and she didn't either. I'm dancing around telling her that I really hated mice, REALLY hated mice. She laughed and thought I was so ridiculous and bid me farewell again.
I resolved to sit under my mosquito net, and suddenly I heard scratching sounds near my metal trunk. It sounded like the mouse was inside of the trunk, which would be logical because the trunk has all of my food inside of it. I was a little bit happy about this because I had placed a shelf with my pots on top of the trunk. I was laughing to myself thinking how I would let it suffer all night and then get my family to kill it in the morning, but the thought of listening to a rat squeal all night long was too much for me to bear. Certain it was in the trunk and not able to hurt me, I bravely returned to my host family's house.
The game was over by then. My family wasn't messing around anymore and they sent a small army consisting of my host dad (the mayor of the village. Can you imagine a mayor of any city coming to your house to kill a rat?) and three kids ages 12, 6, and 5 maybe. On the walk I said, “I be na souris faga?” Are you going to kill the rat? I was pretty pleased with myself for that sentence, and he laughed and said he was going to, yes.
Guess what? The rat wasn't in the case after all. I don't know where it was or what other living creatures were making those sounds in or around my house (I'm now thinking something is living on my roof at nights. Bats? I hear rats can scale walls though...). I felt really ridiculous but had to laugh out loud when he offered me one of the children and said she could stay at my house and kill the rat when it came back. I felt silly having a 12 year old body guard all night and didn't really want to play host at that point. He walked outside and said, “Kan ben sinin sogoma.” See you in the morning, in a tone that I knew meant, enough is enough, leave it be for the time being.
The tale doesn't end here though. The rat went away, and I didn't hear from it again that night. I have taken to duck taping part of my screen door shut so it is not able to push it open and get inside my house. It worked pretty well too because one morning I woke up and found it sitting in the two inch space between my front door and the screen door. I waited for it to leave and saw where it crept out from. I found the hole in the door and filled it in as best as I could, and I haven't seen the rat again. I'm not letting it live though. I'm getting mouse traps from the States sent here, and another volunteer tells me that there is poison that kills them. The poison sounds better because it kills the mouse, whereas the mouse trap only holds it prisoner for a while. At any rate, that rat and any other rat who tries to mess with me is going down. Very, very soon.
The End