Story 2: it was the size of my head, red eyes, fangs…

Saturday night Sarah and I got chased away from our cribbage game early to escape the hungry mosquitoes, who, we were assured, are NOT malaria carrying! (We’ll see about that in the next 7-10 days!) After 3 days of playing in the sand and sun I thought I was just going to crawl into the sanctuary of my mosquito net and fall fast asleep. For some reason, once I got into my net, which I was sharing with Nede with our 2 single mattresses secured beneath, I got a bit ambitious and thought I would read for a bit. I started on my back but then my arms got tired from hold my book above my head. I wanted to lay on my left side but then I knew the light from my head lamp would shine in Nede’s face so I turned on my right side. Positioning myself this way left only a few inches between me, my net and the wall. Not the most comfortable but that’s how it is. Shortly after, Sarah came in and was settling herself in her bed on the other side of Nede’s. All was still, tranquil, relaxed when I let out a HUGE scream as a RAT raced next to my head about 6 inches from my face!!!! I FLEW away from the wall, landing on Nede’s leg. Sarah startled, obviously, and said “What’s wrong???” To which I screamed, “There’s a RAT INSIDE MY MOSQUITO NET!”

Sarah then said a few choice words on my behalf as I reached over Nede trying to untuck the mosquito net from the far corner of the foot of Nede’s bed. As I tugged unsuccessfully the rat jumped up against the net in it’s own attempt to get out of the prison he put himself in. I continued to be unsuccessful in trying to get this critter out of MY personal space. It then ran up the length of Nede’s bed RIGHT next to her head! I repositioned myself to make the reach across Nede to free the intruder from the far corner of the head of Nede’s bed. I was finally successful and in a split second he was gone. Where to, we never found. We were pretty sure he had gone out from our net but we never saw where he went.

Sarah and I then, after some time, got out from under our nets (I felt safe NO WHERE now) to move EVERY item in the baraka to make sure he wasn’t still hiding somewhere. We lifted every sheet, every mattress put ALL our bags outside and over an hour later felt somewhat confident to retuck our nets back under our mattresses and climb back into bed.

Nede slept through it all.

And me? I have been traumatized. The security of the mosquito net that I have put my confidence in for greater than 2 years is now gone. And now I have been having visions in my head of a rat the size of my head, fangs and red eyes that looked into my soul…

I didn’t sleep well that night.