I Smell A Rat

“I smell a rat baby, I smell a rat baby. You better watch out.”

Patty Griffin sings these words and I feel they are an appropriate anthem for the past few days on the homestead.  You see, last year when we were here it was summer time so the main issue we had was bugs crawling on us throughout the day and night.  Now it is winter, so, no bugs.  But furry rodents are looking for refuge from the ‘brutal’ wind and chilly air at night so it seems they decided our hut was the place to be.  There was an Adventures in Missions team staying on this homestead that left on Tuesday and they warned us about these rodents, but we were not worried because Lelo reassured us that once we put the rat poison in there, it will not be a problem.  So we spent one more night in a different room so the rats could be eliminated without us ever having to lay an eye on them. 

Wednesday night was our first night in the hut.  We were excited to each have a bed to ourselves and to get settled into the hut.  Although we were slightly anxious about hearing/seeing a mouse/rat in the middle of the night, we were hopeful that the rat poison had done the trick.

this picture has absolutely nothing to do with the rat.  We only have videos of the rat and those take too long to upload so, I wanted to add a picture just for the sake of having one on this blog :)

3:30 am…I fly out of bed and jump onto the ladder on the side of the bunk bed.  I heard a noise that resembled a squeaky mouse = I freak out!  Katie and Kaci were also awake because they heard the same noise.  We aren’t exactly the fiercest of women, so we sat on our bunk beds with our headlamps looking on the roof and all around the room for the source of the noise.  Kaci gets out her camera to document this experience, which was hilarious to watch the next morning.  We are eventually tired of looking for the mouse and wanted to go back to sleep.  We kept inspecting the roof for anything undesirable and that’s when Katie saw a spider repelling down towards her head, so lots more screaming took place.  Followed by the smashing of every spider we could find.  We didn’t sleep much the rest of the night because we kept hearing a noise that sounded mousey but at least we never saw it!

Thursday night we were prepared for another sleepless night. 

12:00 am “He’s here!”  Is what Kaci and I heard, and we immediately went into a panic.  We knew exactly whom Katie was referring to when she said “He’s here.”  Katie was sitting up and said she just saw the rat jump down from the wall and run across the floor.  This was obviously not good news.  We spent the next hour and a half screaming and following the rat using our headlamps as a spotlight.  We were exhausted because we had realized that the best sleep we had was on the plane a week ago.  Fear + exhaustion = 3 sobbing girls.  Kaci and I kept saying, “I just want my dad.”  We felt so helpless and hopeless.  All we wanted at this point was rest.  In the past week we had slept, but even our sleeping time was stressful.  Up until this moment we had documented the chaos, but when the tears started to fall, we turned the cameras off.  Looking back, we all wish we could have seen this incredibly pathetic night.  We laugh about it now, but not the kind of laughing where you ever want it to happen again.  It’s more a “I can’t believe that happened” kind of laughter. 

We have not seen a rat in our hut since Thursday night.  On Friday, our dear friend/brother Mbonisi slept in the hut, which allowed us to finally rest, because we knew he would kill anything if he saw it.  Our minds were finally at ease.  Saturday night, Mbonisi and Phinda slept in our hut, only after they had killed a mouse that made an appearance in the other building where the kitchen is.  We were watching something on Kaci’s laptop when we saw 2 (or 3) mice scurry across the kitchen and yes, you would have thought something much worse was happening than the sighting of a few mice, based on our reaction.  Mbonisi walked in the kitchen and knew exactly what we had been screaming about.  Phinda pulled out his bush knife, which had been tucked away in his pant leg, and they casually walked around the kitchen look for the vermin.  When once was brave enough to run across the floor, Mbonisi quickly slammed his shoe on top of it, to which he replied, “Minus one.”  Yes, one less mouse we had to worry about.  Thanks Phinda and Mbonisi you are heroes.