The Rat

It’s not often that a small furry flea infested disease-spreading rodent can cause so much hilarity and pure fun – but this one did.

One day we were all sitting in the lounge eating dinner when William suddenly turns to me and says quite matter-of-factly “you ought to shut your bedroom door (which is just off of the lounge diner bit). I thought yea fair enough mosquitoes etc might get in. But he says “there’s a rat in here”. And O My Goodness I HATE rats! Especially if you’re in a country when its customary to take your shoes off at the door and you don’t wear socks with flipflops. I was glad I was sitting on my feet in the armchair! Eventually it transpoires that this thing has been around for three or four days (!) and that they are “sorting it”. I assumed that this meant they were gonna poison it, especially when Florence appeared with some and then promptly retreated to her room again after dinner.

So we are clearing up and I’m standing in the kitchen with Judah when Norah comes in with her heaviest black shoes and William follows closely behind with his. Seeing my apparent confusion, Judah kindly informs me that they are gonna kill it.

Well. I have never seen chaos erupt more instantly than it did just then, as simultaneously Pastor Azariah (from Ishongororo in the West who has been staying for a few days) and William yanked the sofa from the wall, Sam came running in with a football and threw it to the ground with all the strength he could muster, Norah remembered that she wasn’t wearing any shoes either and ran and screamed her way into the kitchen with us, and all available shoes and footballs started being pelted to the floor like a meteorite attack!

Me, still in me I-hate-anything-that-is-wild-and-brushes-past-my-feet mode suddenly realized that as Sam William and Azariah continued throwing the armchairs from one side of the room to the other, the rat was slowly but surely zigzagging its way towards me! This is when I joined Norah in the squealing and laughing and jumping around on any available furniture.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Shoes were still being hurled to the lino and I was sure that rat was determined to find a mzungo rat to nibble on before it died. At one point Norah and me ran back out into the kitchen to find Judah still calmly standing there arms crossed and leaning his Mr Cool shoulder against the wall as if nothing was happening…apart from now he was somehow perched on the lid of a little green bucket. Not nervous of the rat at all of course, just, well perching, not allowing his street cred to be compromised by the others who were still running around sliding furniture and lobbing things at anything that looked like it could be a rat. At one point poor Jaja (Emmanuel’s mum) tried to come in the back door, and as much as she’s a very alert and able 76 yr old, she took a while to be convinced by the many shouting voices that they couldn’t move the coffee table from in front of the door just at that very moment.

BANG! Just as that little thing thought it was gonna sneak into my room under the door that wasn’t quite blocked up with a table cloth, William’s aim got the better of it and it met a loud but immediate end with the help of a big heavy man’s shoe. It took a while for the squealing and giggling to subside from Norah and me, while Judah made sure not to descend from his safe spot on the bucket in too much of a hurry. But as soon as Sam put his hand into a carrier bag and proudly carried the thing out by its tail, the drama was all over.

Apart from the slightly wonky furniture, a teary-eyed couple of girls and a tired but male-ego satisfied few men, you might never know anything had happened. In fact Florence was plesently suprised when she heard about the whole thing the next day. Another experience for the books for me though!