Other Rodent Stories From Africa, Part 2

When I moved out to the Timothy Centre (the project just outside Masaka where I live and work, not to be confused with the Kibaale Community Centre, which is an hour away, and I’m there three days every week), I was amazed at how nice it was. For the previous four months, I had been living in the room I described in the last post – a small, basic room with a bed and a desk, doing my “business” in a hole with swarms of flies for company, and eating lots and lots of matooke while sitting on a concrete step. You know, the local life. And it was good. But since I was going to be staying in the country for another six months, the upgrade in living conditions was a change I welcomed with open arms.

The place I moved into was a two-bedroom unit on the property where the school is being built. There was a real toilet, a real shower, a queen-size bed, a dresser and closet, and maybe most importantly, a kitchen! It had a four-burner stove, an oven, a fridge, a sink, counters, lots of dishes … everything. (As I’m writing this, I realize that it sounds just like a normal kitchen, but after not being able to cook for yourself for four months, the idea of making even simple things like pasta or eggs was so appealing! Not to mention the dirt-cheap produce (hah, pun intended) and the cooking experiments I’ve tried over the last few months.) And there was a volunteer work team who had been staying there just two weeks prior to when I moved in, so there was still food on the shelves! That’s great, right? Well, not so much.

As I started to go through the food that was left, I realized that I would be throwing much of it out. Some things were just left wide open, which meant the food had gone stale. Some things were just old and gross. And some things bore obvious signs of being picked through by some mice. If the mouse droppings all over the counters and cabinets weren’t enough to convince you, then looking through multiple bags and containers that had been chewed through had to set you straight. But I just figured that mice had been there when no one was around, but now that someone was there again, they would leave. But there wasn’t even time for an exodus.

There was a box of tea bags on the back of one shelf, and after I had moved everything else off that shelf, I went to see how many tea bags were left. But when I opened the box, I didn’t see tea bags, but instead, I saw two beady eyes and some whiskers staring back at me. “Oh, man!” I yelled as I dropped the lid back on the box. The mouse didn’t jump out, or try to run away, it just stayed there. Hah, silly little mouse. You’re not even going to try to escape? Your loss …

But first, I went to grab the guy living next door, named Karl. He came over, and I told him where the mouse was. We decided to gently slide the box into a plastic bag, then dump the bag in the trash can. We then took the trash can up to the garbage pit, and we did what happens to all other trash in Uganda: we burned it. We stayed by the pit for a while to watch and see if the mouse chewed its way out of the bag, but neither of us saw anything. Chances are, this little guy made his way out somehow, but I never saw it. All I know is that there were no more rodent problems in my new place until, well, yesterday, when the flying rat paid me a visit.