Rat Scratch Fever DooDoo-Doo-Doo

Like I mentioned before in the FAQ section of my blog, the place I stay in has somehwat of a rat problem. Actually, the term "epidemic" seems a better fit. I live on the grounds of the local Catholic church, and the parishioner stores his maize in the building that is connencted to my kitchen (my kitchen is in a building that is across the courtyard from my front door). This is the main reason for all of the rats. The walkway from my house to the kitchen has a tin roof hanging over it, and the rain gutters on the roof are basically just rat highways. They can creep into my place with ease. And a nother very uncool thing about the gutters is that we collect rain water for washing, cleaning, and most importantly, drinking. And some rats don't make it across the highway, and lie in the gutters for long periods of time.

So most of the time, we actually don't see the rats, we just hear them. They are above us running around in the attic, and they are in the walls, scratching and making that horrible squeal that only rats can make. It doesn't help that they are nocturnal. If you ever have have the displeasure of waking up in the middle of the night for whatever reason, the herd of rats running across the attic floor makes it very hard to get back to sleep.

But sometimes, on those days where you wish you were never born, you get up close and personal with these horrific rodents. Like the one time after dinner one night, when I opened up the cupboard in the kitchen, and a rat jumped out from one of the top shelves, and grazed my leg in mid-flight. Now before this happened, I thought, "I deal with rats living inside the walls of my house. Seeing one run by me won't scare me." I was way off. When I felt that rat touch my leg, I screamed like a little girl and ran out of the kitchen faster that I have ever ran before.

We chased the sucker around the kitchen for a while, under the fridge, behind the cupboard, and then we finally had it cornered behind the oven. Finally. But for some reason, we could not find it. As ajoke, I told Tim to open the oven door, and he did. The rat was sitting in the oven. What a sight. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Needless to say, the oven has been out of commission since. I'll probably never understand how that rat got on the third shelf of the cupboard.

Good thing for Tim and I, there is a product sold at the Malava Agro-Vet called STORM. In my opinion, it is man's greatest achievement. I hold it in such a regard that I feel every letter in the product's name should be capitalized. STORM is a little blue ball of rat poison that makes rats thirsty when they eat it, so they leave the house to go find water. Unfortunately, some don't make it to far (the pics that I put up are the ones that I felt wouldn't make people sick. Remember people, this is a family-oriented blog).

This pic is great. It was taken on one of our first days in Malava. Tim saw this nest in a corner of the building where our kitchen is. He decided that he didn't want bees bothering us, so he decided to wack it down with a broom handle. So he gives it a wack, and what pops out, but 6 baby rats, who fall to their death, which was absolutely fabulous. Turns out it was a bird's nest, and the rats ate the bird eggs and took over the nest.

This is what we found on our front steps one morning. First official STORM victim of the new year

Found this guy in the water bucket we use to filter for DRINKING. STORM made the rat so thirsty, that it decided it would rather drown in a big bucket of water than go on being that thirsty.

Glorious Vacation

A couple of weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of spending the weekend in the city of Kisumu. It is the third largest city in all of Africa, and is only two hours from my village. It sits on Lake Victoria, which is the second largest fresh water lake in the world. The city itself is very cool, and has a very westernized feel to it. The reason I went was to meet up with two of my fellow volunteers, Sandy and Arielle, who are teaching in Nairobi. I spent all of Friday night and dancing like a complete idiot with a bunch of german ex-pats who we met where we were staying. Everybody wa having a good time until I asked one of the German guys to show me is David Haselhoff tatoo.

Moving along to the next day: This is Evans. At first he tried to charge us 800 shillings each for the boat ride. You can't blame him for trying to burn a group of muzungus, everyone tries to do it. Then I kindly explained to him that we weren't tourists, but residents of this fine country. I also told him that I have been to Kenyan weddings that have cost less. We ended up going for 600 altogether. Evans turned out to be a great navigator and a really nice guy.

The lovely ladies of Notre Dame Mission Volunteer Organization. On the left is Sandy, and to the right is Arielle.

Sandy let me borrow her scarf for neck protection. She said I looked like I was about to start melting.

Hyacinth covers much of the lake during certain parts of the year, which really hurts business for fisherman and people who give boat tours

The pics of the Lake don't do it ANY justice. It is unbelievable.

yea that's right, hippos baby

Craziness. They were so close to the boat

It looks like the hippo is smiling for the camera. It's a fact that Hippos cause more deaths in Africa each year than any other animal. I never understood this because I was always taught that they were herbivores. And I was right (like always). Most of the deaths are caused when the hippos tip the boat over, and God know what happens to the people after that. Yea so after this last shot, we decided it was our time to go haha.

Even Evans got scared at this point. The hippo was heading towards us. It was our time to move on. A great time was had by all on Lake Victoria. Kisumu is glorious