Bat rats

Today during breakfast, my cousin was sweeping the ¨sala¨ or ¨family/living/hang out room.¨ She had stayed the night to do some homework at our house and before she left, she started to sweep the sala. Now this ¨sala¨of ours gets swept by my host brother, sister or mom everyday since so much dust comes in. They move the three chairs and sweep underneath and then proceed onto the kitchen.

So there I was, eating my three pieces of buttered- bread and coffee for breakfast when my host cousin said nonchalantly ¨Yeni (my host mom), come here and look.¨ The tone that she uttered this phrase made me think she had found something as interesting as a dirty-sock underneath one of the chairs but no. It was a rat. A giant, hairy, dead rat. It was lying on it’s side, paws stretched out, mouth open. Obviously dead. Now I should count my blessings and thank someone that the rat was dead instead of alive but I´m not sure if that’s the case. I kind of wish it had been alive so it could have scurried away during the night without me having to see it as I was applying butter to my bread.

The only person that even picked their heads up from the table to see the creepy crawler was my mom who actually CHUCKLED as she went and got something to pick the rat up with and toss him outside. No one else even thought this remotely revolting. Minus me. As quickly as I could and before I could process the vision in my head, I downed my coffee in one gulp and shoved the remaining piece of bread into my mouth and headed to my room to privately gag.
Apparently my town has had a rat problem, I have just not been made aware of it. Sure I knew there was one here and there like the one I saw the week before scurry along the street in Tumbes and run UP SOMEONE’S LEG, but other than that, I had no idea MY house could have been serving as one of their havens. So, in response to that problem, my host dad called up his friend who came in and gassed the house, which was the reason we found our little dead friend in the sala.

Almost all of the other volunteers have seen rats in their house; my friend Ian watched one die before his very own eyes as his family chased it around his room with sticks to beat it with. My friend Alyse is a little different though. While she has had the most rat-sightings in her house (averaging maybe one a night), she has no problem with this. “ As long as they don’t eat my food or crawl into my bed, I’m okay.” This may be due to the fact that Alyse is from Oregon and grew up with two rats as pets throughout her life. The most favored one was “Bat- rat”, a furry friend that her family kept as a pet that would wander around the house freely. Alyse speaks with such regale when reminiscing about Bat-rat ,” He used to be the cutest thing- he loved sleeping in the fresh laundry while it was still warm from getting out of the dryer. “ I guess this is when you use the term- “ different strokes for different folks.” Turns out Bat-rat’s hobby turned out to be his demise when he accidentally snuggled into the wrong pile of laundry and ended up in the washer- but I won’t go into that story nor the lingering effects it had/has on Alyse’s life.

All I’ll say is, maybe if I had Bat-rat as a pet when I was a child, maybe I would have felt a stab of pain as the rat in my house was carried away. But since I was given a puppy instead, I was glad to see that rat go.