rats

I have already told some of you about the rats which dog my life in Liinu's house. But now I must vent!
Firstly, there is the one which lurks in the grocery cupboard and ran up my arm and down my side and slithered its tail over my foot on our first night in residence. That one still scuttles in there and I now give the cupboard a good kick whenever I go near it just in case. He remains there and terrified me by not running very far last time and letting his disgusting long tail hang down behind the shelf where the tea lives (and as you know, tea is my elixir of life, so I must face the beast often!)
Then there is another (or the same very busy one?) who hangs about behind the loo (which is fortunately raised on a little platform; the only reason I can still face it on dark nights), and dashes over one's foot as one wanders in for a late night wee. I think he chews the loo brush - retch-worthy stuff...
And then there is the one which makes off with Eddie's dummies. I wondered where they were disappearing to and then found one on the beam which runs behind our bed, chewed all around the top with little rodent teeth (sharp ones!) - rats love silicone apparently. (I know this because only once in my more youthful life did I owne a snorkel and mask, which I still revealingly up until that time called "goggles" (big no-no!), and used them once in Madagascar and only to find them a year later chewed to ribbons by a rodent in our storeroom at home.) I wake at night in a sweat thinking about those times when I might have inadvertently picked up the dummy from the floor and popped it into Ed's mouth - could it have been gnawed upon and been covered in rat spit?? What horrific germs could Eddie have snuffled in???
And finally, (but not finally enough as it still lurks), there is the one which managed to insert itself under our mosquito net in the darkest hours of the night and tickle my shoulder. With what? and why? are the questions which haunt me. Was it attempting a taste and about to take a chunk of my flesh out with its next bite? Or was it just tapping me to see if I was asleep enough to start some nefarious pursuit only known to rats. (As an aside, Yoliswa told me once that in the townships in South Africa, the mice and rats get into people's beds at night and actually chew off the hard skin on the heels. One wakes in the morning to find one's feet nibbled raw! The story has remained in my mind and looms up on dark nights such as the one described.).)
I leaped up when I felt it and lunged blindly about the bed screeching to Bush to get rid of it, but he lay there like a sodding corpse and harrumphed uselessly every time I yelled at him to do something. I shone my torch under the bed and there it was looking at me out of its horrible shiny poppy little eyes. Foul thing! Then it horrified me more by starting a mad rush around the perimeter of the net trying to escape while I howled in terror. I eventually managed to lift the net with my foot at one end of the bed and bang away at the other end and it scuttled off at last. Fortunately the children didn't wake up and nor did Bush - so I then lay there like a gasping bloody fish unable to discuss the ordeal and thus deal with it (as women must in order to get closure!) and unable to sleep for many more hours.
It's a hard life out here in paradise, babes!

first blog missive

hello all
I have decided to embrace new technology whilst sweltering in my tropical office. It seems a bizarre thing that one can be sitting in a reed building at the edge of Lake Malawi and communicating with the rest of the world (well a few people who live out there.)
I feel a bit shy using this thing - what if someone ghastly reads my waffles and finds them inane and take the time to tell me? It would be a bit of a dampener on the delicate spirits, really!
However, I am plunging in and using this as an easier way to email you all and an easier way to show pics - sending them via the ether can be a long process and I am always forced to choose only one or two whereas my day is full of visual feasts! As I sit here, just outside my office all the boatmen (dressed in very bright orange shirts) are erecting every (bright blue) tent Kayak Africa own in order to check for missing bits. Even that is a picture against the reed walls of Jurie's house and the green of the ancient bwemba (tamarind) tree. Sadly for them , when they went to have lunch, Ben, Buji, Java and Eddie were delighted to find 10 tents to play in and proceeded to decorate the interiors with plant seedlings in leaky black bags and to have a war with the carefully counted tent pegs! Had to rush out and have severe words with them and entice them away with promises of juice.
Have to say, it is quite a thing dealing with four kids now! Two was busy enough, but even just trying to pour four cups (all must be argued over and specially selected by each child or it will only cause more whining!) of juice becomes a bit of a frenetic exercise. I am not the world's calmest mother and tend to grit teeth and become snappish when confronted by four children all yelling their needs at me. Am constantly muttering "Say please!" and "Now, I am just not going to give you anything if you don't ask politely!", but, let's face it, sometimes that just exhausts one more! Still, most of the time they are out and about, playing and swimming and drawing with Felix and Zoda. Today I discovered them burrowing about in all the wooden offcuts of Liinu's house "looking for snakes". "And what were you going to do with the snake when you found it?" I asked. "Kill it with our spears!" they joyfully responded, brandishing blunt little bamboo sticks. My heart did a bit of a lurch and I turned back into the harridan mother from hell as I told them how long it took to die of a snake bite and how fast a snake could strike. They were unfortunately riveted by my tales instead of being scared into submission which was my proposed outcome!