The Rat

The week before we travelled here, we had lunch with a guy who has travelled to Uganda a few times and (come to find out a few days ago) just received word that the daughter they are trying to adopt from here just got her visa approved. Yay a thousand times over! As great as that is, that’s not the point of the introduction. At lunch, he was giving us a few pointers about the apartment, what is currently not working and what they left in a few suitcases in case we needed anything. He also warned us that while his wife was here, they were having rat issues. He mentioned an electric mouse trap they left at the apartment. Mental note: rats...find the rat trap immediately.

A few days ago, while waking at 4:30 am to the sound of plastic water buckets banging around at the water well, I was properly introduced to the rodent spoken of in the above paragraph. Being that it was 4:30 in the morning, it was still dark. I walked out toward the kitchen and saw the shadow of a scurrying rat on the counter. Of course, I ran back in the room and jumped on the bed. I don’t know what it is about rats, but I’ve never met one who hasn’t caused even the bravest man to jump up on something to get his feet off the floor.

Needless to say, the last five days we have been doing everything possible to catch it. Peanut butter in an electric trap, cardboard boxes, brooms and dustpans, even sugar cane used as a giant rat swatter. I wish I could post a picture of the thing stuck in a trap and dead, but, unfortunately, he remains at large. Two nights ago we were all sitting in the living room with Perez’s niece (16 year old niece to be exact...figure that one out) and a little girl named Leah and I watched the thing sneak in the front door. The next 25 minutes we launched an all out rat-hunt complete with plenty of jumping up on furniture, shrieks (both human and rat), brooms swinging wildly, cabinets being jostled, and finally the laughter and relief of watching the thing squeeze its way back out the door.

Since that night, we have shoved a towel under and between the front door each night and never gone more than a few minutes with the door open. We have seen him three times eyeing us from his hole above our staircase, just waiting for us to give him an inch. This morning I woke to the sound of plastic being ripped open and came out in the kitchen to see Steve breaking into a package of glue traps. These are the nasty kind. The kind of trap where the rat doesn’t die, he just sticks there squealing and staring up at you with beady black eyes begging for you to give him a second chance.

I’ll be sure to post the picture when we get him.