There's a What in our kitchen?!

Along the lines of the lizard in the computer, but worse! Last weekend, after all of us mentors being gone for the week, we noticed a small hole in our kitchen window screen. Just assumed a knife in the dish drainer had cut it or something. We were mostly worried about mosquitoes getting in, but just closed the glass over the hole. The next day, to our surprise, there was another hole! Vicky was out on the deck outside the window, and said, "That's been bitten; there are little pieces of screen out here." We were definitely thinking "mouse" by then. The next morning, a bite of avocado was missing from one on the counter! By then, Joanna, downstairs, had noticed a hole in one of her screens, so she went and got poison for us to share (it's called "raticide" here!). We put out some peanut butter and poison in a couple of places, and the next morning, some had obviously been eaten, and Joelle heard it in the back of one of our cabinets. She and Corinne banged on the cabinet hoping to scare it into the open, but nothing happend. Another night, more peanut butter and poison, and we're up to about Friday. Friday morning, an entire banana was missing! That really creeped us out, beacause now it seemed we had this "super rat" who was impervious to poison and had dragged off a whole banana! We called one of the base workers to come over, and he proceeded to knock holes in baseboards to find it. He finally did run out of one cabinet (I jumped up on the kitchen counter at that point and was no help at all!) and ran under a sofa. Joelle, Corinne, and Philemon chased him with dish towels (Joelle), a hammer (Philemon), and screams (Corinne), as he ran from one hiding place to another. He found a really good one under the stove or in back of a cabinet because we lost him at that point. However, along the way, we found where he'd been spending all that week - he had stashes of food under a sofa, in the under stove drawer (which we never use), and in the back of a cabinet, behind the wall. There was talk of more poison, the garage cat, etc. Finally, a trap was procured and set last night with a piece of banana (apparently his favorite food!), and this morning he was caught in it and dead! He honestly didn't look as big as when he was alive and running around our kitchen, but we're still very relieved that he's gone! (And hoping he was alone!!)

Back to Karanse on Monday, and looking forward to it. Can't wait to find out who's sharing the guesthouse with us this week! That's always a new adventure!