Saturday, January 2, 2010

Live in the Rat Hut

Rats Rats Rats. Well I guess they look more like large grey mice then the traditional huge brown rats with long tails – but everyone here calls ‘em rats. So, I’ve actually spotted in the daytime GusGus (who is fat) and Jerry (who is petite) both run across my floor and at night I can hear them both eating. “Eating what?” you may ask. Well, EVERYTHING – from the cap of my water bottle to my toothbrush holder, my toothpaste, my clothes and even playing cards. They pee on my stuffed animals and leave dropping everywhere.


Exhibit A & B: Can you see the holes in my shirt and toothbrush holder???


I had a cat – Dracula – who I inherited from Lei Tong (the last volunteer). However, he threw up worms all over my floor and I got pretty angry and made him sleep in the kitchen after that. He was good at killing rats but was picky about the food I’d try to give him – I think he wanted tuna but I always tried to feed him island food. While I was going around to the different villages he was caught eating baby chickens and so they killed him.


Sadly one of the last pictures of Dracula - RIP

Also, while I was going around to the villages and sleeping in other’s huts I had some run ins with the rats. One time I awoke to one licking at my foot – from then on I wore socks or made sure to cover them up. I found out its common for rats to try to eat people’s feet because maybe they didn’t wash them good or have food still stuck on them. One boy had a huge chunk chewed off – I asked him why he didn’t wake up but I guess he just sleeps like the dead. When I hear a rat scurry close to me or feel his weight on my legs I always kick them or shine my light to run ‘em off.

I have a new kitten now, her name is Leno and she is small still but I can already tell she’s going to be the best rat killing machine ever. And at least at the moment just her presence in the house is scaring the rats.



Leno resting and Leno practicing her quick reflexes w/ my handmade toy


1 comment:

  1. Oh yuck...I can't stand the rat stories! But, I'm glad you have Leno-she is so cute!

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