panya kubwa

April 4th (part 4)

Lindsay kept informing me that our mouse friend returned. She heard noises in the roof at night. I believed her but thought it was a little odd that he wasn’t eating any of our food. Wednesday morning I got a pleasant surprise in the kitchen. It wasn’t the little mouse that we scared off in January, it was a full grown rat the length of my hand! I screamed and woke Lindsay. Throughout the day Wednesday and Thursday we had students and neighbors climb into our ceiling to investigate things. Unfortunately, the rat was not seen. This, inevitably, led to stories about the rat. Teachers and villagers informed Lindsay and I that the rat is actually a person. The person transforms into a rat at night to scare us. If we killed the rat we are actually committing murder. Since I don’t want them to think I am a murderer and kill me in turn, I will get someone else to kill the rat!

On Friday morning I woke Lindsay a second time when the rat ran out of my clothes when I was trying to pick an outfit out for school. I jumped into my bed, hid under my mosquito net, and didn’t get out for about twenty minutes. I would have stayed in longer but I would have been late to school. I jumped out and threw things around my room looking for his hiding place but I couldn’t find where the rat escaped to. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

On Saturday morning, I woke to a noise in the kitchen. I yelled to Lindsay but there was no reply. The new panya was making his rounds. I entered the kitchen in time to see him in the food shelf. I started throwing food off when finally I realized he was hiding in the hole where the shelf is leaning against the wall in a triangular shape. He was trapped. But how to get him out was the next issue. I started banging things against the shelf but he just stayed where he was. Eventually, I got on my phone and asked Mbughi to send his son to help. Two phone calls and 20 minutes later Noeli arrived. I asked Lindsay for my machete and for the next twenty minutes Noeli and I chased the rat around the kitchen. At one point I trapped him in a pot and was quite proud of myself but then Noeli lifted the pot and the rat ran free. He ran right under the kitchen door, over Lindsay’s waiting feet, and then ran back into the kitchen. Eventually we cornered him again and Noeli hit him with the flat side of the machete a few times until he stopped moving. After that Lindsay emerged from her room to see Noeli hold the dead rat by the tail. I got a picture, don’t worry.

The rat is gone and we are happy, right? Wrong. On Thursday evening I spotted his cousin in the kitchen. We left on Friday and I hope I return to a clean and rodent free kitchen this weekend! Blah!

Love,

Gretchen