A Monster By Night is Only a Mouse By Morning...

...or a rat in your bed, or bed bugs.

I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while, but truthfully I have been doing some many things it has completely slipped my mind that you guys care about reading what I’m up to, so sit back and read the crazy, disgusting stories I have to tell you today. Be prepared for a long post.

I first want to thank Aunt Brenda for the amazing package! the kids love the bubbles, skipper, uno, and crayons!

When moving to a developing country you expect to be faced with many animals, rodents, spiders, and insects, but truthfully you never expect these encounters to mentally and physically drain you. So let me bring you back a few months to where it all began before I take you to the now.

As some of you might already know, I have had a rat problem since I moved to village that truthfully, is probably getting worse instead of better. After getting several different types of traps and poisons with nothing actually killing more than a couple rats, I have had several strange experiences with these creatures that have truly made me feel unsafe in my own home at times. This all started with me catching the first rat, only by its foot, and not having died in the trap at 2AM. Not knowing what to do, I left it to wander my house with the trap until I could figure out a plan in the morning (probably get my landlord to deal with it, but we never got there). I woke up to find that it had escaped under my door and took my trap with it. Quickly I found that I had to be smarter than the rat. I eventually put a trap in my metal trunk that usually stores my produce (it liked to jump in and eat my tomatoes), the rat jumped into the trunk that night and jumped right onto the trap. Soon I realized the large metal traps that are handmade here are not sensitive enough for these rats, they were able to eat the peanut butter off the trap and not get caught, so I was basically just feeding the rats instead of killing them.

Flash forward a couple weeks and I leave for the weekend leaving a rat to give birth in my house. I return to 5 babies running around my house at all hours. I was

able to catch 4 of these quickly due to their extreme stupidity using sticky glue traps I found in Kigali. Sadly, the rats started to outsmart the traps and were hiding in my kitchen every night. Feeling extremely defeated I started telling my stories and problems to the teachers at school. When I left for a training I returned to find that my wonderful landlord, Seti, had bought a cat to help me with my issue. Sadly the cat is still a kitten and can’t actually catch the rats yet, but it loves to eat the ones I catch. (update, the cat tried to attack a rat last night and instead the rat attacked it and the cat almost died)

I forgot to mention that I’m completely terrified of rats and all rodents of any kind. So every time there is a rat I scream and I run to get my landlord to take the ones I catch out of my house. When catching the baby rats this was more than once a day, but of course my landlord is not always there, so his young sons, who help me with everything, come over and take care of it. Here is a picture of my 3 year old neighbor being so much braver than I am and taking a baby rat to feed to the cat.

After being on Med Hold in Kigali for so long and then leaving for South Africa I expected the rats to take over my house in my absence, but I found that it was the opposite, for a time at least. I returned with my giant walking cast to find that there was not evidence of rats in my house at all, but it didn’t last long. One morning I was making breakfast when I dropped something on the ground and leaned over to pick it up and under my boot was a rat, head bashed in from my stomping and

completely dead.I LITERALLY STEPPED ON A RAT AND KILLED IT! I didn’t even know it was there!!! I bravely swept that one out of my house and into my latrine. When I told my headmistress and co-teacher this, I was glad to see they were just as disgusted and surprised as I was.

Now my rat problems come to a climax one night, two weeks ago after doing my laundry. I’m sitting on my couch and I see a flash of brown at my bedroom door. I knew it was a rat running into my bedroom. I was pissed. I quickly heard rustling coming from my bedroom and peeked inside to see the rat on top of my cabinet staring at me. I quickly shined a flash light at it and it didn’t move, just stared at me with its giant Mickey Mouse ears from the top of my cabinet. I ran back to my couch and put my feet up. Freaking out that its still in my bedroom and I had to make my bed before being able to tuck myself safely under my mosquito net. (my mosquito net is my safety net from all things crawling and walking in my house). So after an appropriate freak out I pulled on my big girl panties (as my mom would say) and made a plan. I grabbed my clean sheets, my phone and ran to my bed figuring I would just make the bed while on it so I didn’t have to stand incase the rat was under my bed. I took a deep breath and ran. I got on my bed and started moving my blankets when something jumped. And THERE WAS A RAT IN MY BED. I am not lying, I am not exaggerating and I screamed bloody murder. The rat was trying to run off the bed, but kept hitting my mosquito net and I ran out of the room back to the safety of my couch. And I started crying, or a better word is bawling. I had no idea what to do and I couldn’t call anyone to have them tell me since my phone was on my bed. After what was probably 20 minutes of crying I finally decided I had to do something. I finally got up and walked over to my landlords house and knocked not the door, getting him out of bed. I told him I had a rat in my bed and asked him to get rid of it. He’s pretty used to my rat antics now, so he calmly walked over and started searching my room. I stood in my living room, refusing to enter my bedroom until the rat was gone. Once he started moving my blankets again the rat ran (actually getting off the bed this time) and booked it to the back door. I quickly ran into my bedroom barricading the door, since I knew that was the one safe space right now. Don’t worry I let my landlord out first. I tucked and re-tucked my mosquito net in making sure it was secure and cried myself to sleep after not being able to get a hold of anyone to cry to on the phone (thanks Dad!). After telling my co-teacher this the next day she immediately sent her house boy to buy me rat poison (I am very well taken care of). Sadly the rat hasn’t actually eaten the poison yet, but well get back to that.

Just as I was starting to get a little more comfortable in my house again, while keeping my mosquito net tucked in at all times and all doors barricaded shut whether I was in the room or not, I started getting bites. Large bed bug bites across my back. Now I have had bed bugs twice before in my life. And this truly shouldn’t have been what broke me, but it did. And I’m sorry today this past week was the first time I ever thought “I could just go home.” You see bed bugs are extremely common in Rwanda, just like the US, but 10 times harder to get rid of since everything is wood and bed bugs LOVE living in wood. So, after crying myself to sleep once more, I got to work. In Rwanda, you must boil all of your clothing and fabric to ensure they are dead and then treat your entire house with this insecticide which would probably be illegal in the US. Its not an easy process and it takes a lot of time and still, many people get them again. So Thursday I started boiling and isolating my things. I bought many plastic buckets (bed bugs can’t climb plastic) and put plastic tubs filled with baby powder under each leg of bed (baby powder dries bed bugs). This at least made sure the bed bugs couldn’t migrate as I cleaned (if they hadn’t already). Saturday was when I finally had time to deep clean and spray my entire house with the insecticide.

This was a long hard process and today we are on Day 6 of trying to dry all of my clothing, but I haven’t had more bites. To ensure that the bed bugs are actually gone, you have to spray several times in a 10 day period, since bed bugs eggs hatch every 10 days. Yesterday, was my second spray and I still have everything isolated and my bedroom is still quarantined until my last spray. Everything I own is in my living room and I am currently sleeping on my couch to ensure nothing gets recontaminated as eggs hatch.

Now this week I quickly realized how uncomfortable I had become in my home. Everything felt unsafe and I could barely sleep. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention the rat came back and is now laying under my couch with all of my belongings. Having rodents and insects in your home quickly isolates yourself and makes you feel alone and uncomfortable. No one wants to come to your home, no one wants to take you in and you feel trapped in the place you currently hate. Now don’t worry I am doing better and I have absolutely no plans of leaving Rwanda anytime soon, but this week was the first time I even thought about it, which was an eye opening experience. Luckily I do have a great site mate who will check my back for bed bug bites, and take shots with me while I cry about my circumstances.

Sadly, I know neither of these fights will be over soon, but I have a plan. I will be receiving a bed bug mattress protector from a friend this weekend and another one from my mom in my next package. I will be buying plastic bins to keep my clothes in so if I happen to get bed bugs again, I know my clothes are at least safe. And my birthday package contains American rat poison which will hopefully actually attract the rats to eat it. I would love to say I am feeling 100% better, but its not true. My house and life feel very chaotic with everything in my small living room and it doesn’t fully feel safe. I understand that I will most likely be fighting these rats my entire time in Rwanda, but its becoming less shocking, and more normal. And better yet, today ended with me discovering that I also have bats in my ceiling.