The ten plagues of Rwanda

Blog June 1, 2009

I had a visitor last week. He stayed for several days, with no prior notice. Fortunately, he was pretty quiet and stayed out of my way most of the time. His only annoying habit was trying to eat my food and run under my feet when I was near him. He was also small, furry and ran very fast. And I was absolutely terrified of him.

As you might have guessed, my visitor was a mouse. A little, brown mouse. The first night I saw him I was in my bed talking on the phone. I screamed and started banging things around to get him out of my room. I made so much noise, my neighbors thought I was being robbed and came over to check on me. I then barricaded myself in my room and finally went to sleep. In the morning, I looked around for him but did not find him. Thinking he had run out my back door, I left for work. That night, when I was cooking, I saw him again! He was in my kitchen running over my plates and kitchen utensils. Taking drastic measures, I grabbed my squeegee and started chasing him. My neighbor came over for something and I recruited him in the mouse hunt. Under no circumstances was I sharing quarters with a mouse! Unfortunately, the mouse outsmarted us. After thirty minutes of searching and sealing all the doors, we could not find him. Disheartened, I let my neighbor go home and I went to bed. The next morning, I went into the kitchen and found my cheese eaten. Furious, I vowed that this situation would end that same day. Grabbing the squeegee, I started banging around the kitchen until the little monster showed himself and started running across the floor. I closed the kitchen door but the mouse, being so small, escaped underneath. I chased him into the hall and saw that he had hid himself behind the hall door, the little fool. Gathering my courage, I did what had to be done and the mouse died. After I finished, I realized that my whole body was shaking. Sure, I had killed insects before but never something that was so obviously warm-blooded and breathing. I scooted it outside the house into my backyard. Afraid it would wake up and run inside again, I raised my squeegee high in the air, closed my eyes, and gave a good last wham on the poor thing.

I wish I could tell you this was my only incident with unwanted guests. Since that day, it seems like I have been inundated with various uninvited critters and I have been trying to get rid of them. Ants are a big problem in my house especially when I bring in pineapple and other such goodies. They don’t really bother me that much; they are just annoying. Spiders are also common but they don’t really bother me either. What really bothers me is looking into my latrine one day and realizing, oh crap, what are those white worms crawling all over my poop. Yeah, sorry to be so direct about this but if I have to deal with it, you, my reader, can deal with it too. Like an idiot, I had never bothered to cover my latrine. Therefore, flies decided to make it their main nesting ground and voila, hundreds and hundreds of fly larvae now live there. Yeah, I know. Gross, super gross. But what can I do about it. I can’t really relocate them. The first few nights, I stared in amazement at the colony. When they started trying to migrate upwards, I realized I was in deep trouble and I broke out my bleach. Like a sadist, I poured the bleach into the hole, watched the critters struggle for a minute and then covered the hole. Unfortunately, the larvae are tough and lived on. I have been pouring bleach into my latrine for the past few days but they still live! Maybe, I should just pour kerosene down the hole and set the whole shebang on fire. Haha. Just kidding, Mom. I would never do that, no matter how tempting it is.

A few days before the latrine incident, I decided to cook some pinto beans. Realizing I was out, I went to the store and bought a kilo. After I came home and opened my bag, I realized my beans were moving. Incredulous, I adjusted my eyes to see hundreds of these pinto bean termites crawling all over my beans. I had been invaded by one of the plagues of Egypt! At the time, one of my Rwandan friends was visiting. He took one look into the bag and asked me, “You didn’t check the beans before buying them?!” Feeling like a fool, I replied dully, “Noooo, I didn’t even know you had to check beans before buying them.” I poured my beans out on a platter and stared at the termites dredging tunnels through all the beans. Annoyed and embarrassed, I decided to boycott the store and storekeeper who sold me the beans; then, I realized it was probably the only store in town that sold beans. I finally exclaimed (like I had done several times before), “In the States, this would never happen!” To which my friend replied, like a real smart-ass, “Oh, I’m sorry the FDA didn’t have time to inspect that batch of beans before it was sold. Maybe, you should go back to the store and get your money back.” He then told me the beans I bought were about five seasons old so it would take much longer to cook than ordinary beans. Like I didn’t already cook my beans for about five to six hours, now I had beans that took longer!

Anyway, I guess that’s life, right. We make mistakes, learn from them and hopefully do not commit the same mistakes again. Granted, it is embarrassing when you first do them, but what can you do about that? In case, you are wondering what I did with the beans, I did not throw them away. We put the beans out in the sun so the termites would crawl away. After several hours, I threw away the beans that had termites still in them or that had more than two holes. With the rest, I just threw them in a pot and ate them that night. You think that’s gross. Just wait until I tell you what I do with my bread when I find ants on them. I blow and shake the ants off of my bread and then I eat it. I can’t throw it away, like I would in the States! If I threw all my bread away, I would have nothing to eat for breakfast and lunch. I lose enough weight as it is. So far, I have lost about 12 pounds and I have gone down two dress sizes. The Peace Corps diet, my friend calls it, and I’m on it. Don’t worry. I won’t starve or anything. I will just be a little thinner when you see me next time. Anyway, I guess my sister must have realized my situation because she sent me a care package. You know what she sent me through the mail?! She sent me chicken! I had never thought of chicken being sent in a package but it was. And I can’t even tell you the last time I ate chicken here. I’m going to save it for a special occasion because it looks really good.