Domestic Difficulties

We are back in Malawi and everything is running at full swing. Now we can start to deal with some of the everyday problems that arise. The most pressing domestic problem we have is the rat. Yes, we have a rat living with us at home. I saw it one night. Then I saw its’ path of destruction. It chewed through powdered milk packets and the flour bag. It worked on the spices and even ate through the precious taco seasoning mix from the States (that dirty rat!!). It ravaged Paul’s desk drawers, leaving evidence of its’ presence with chewed fragments of scotch tape and numerous poops. Eeeeeeeeeeeew!

After it ate the taco seasoning I declared WAR. The only good rat is a dead rat. I tried traps and rat poison. No luck. It seems our rat enjoyed peanut butter the most. So I mixed the rat pellets with the peanut butter making special “crunchy” peanut butter. No go. Nothing.

After numerous failed attempts to kill this obnoxious critter I asked our staff for help. They readily agreed. They were up for the challenge. So yesterday, while I was at work, they did the deed. They heard the rat behind the bookcase in the study, and cornered it. Gift guarded the area in case the rat took an escape route while Baulen ran for the broom. Then they pressed the bookcase against the wall until the dirty rat came scurrying out from behind it. WHAM !– Baulen nailed it using the “percussion method”. Bingo! He was so excited he called me at work, where I was equally excited.

Baulen told me that he had killed another rat in the study while we were gone. So this was not the first. That gives me hope that we are now rat free (for the time being). We’ll see how long it lasts.