Rat in mi kitchen

With apologies to readers in Europe who are currently in the grip of winter weather this is a nice time to be in Kosele. We are at the break-point between growing seasons. Having just harvested our maize crop we are gearing up for preparing our land for the next planting period at the end of February. For optimum conditions we need the weather to stay dry for about the next month and then fairly steady rainfall to get the crops off to a good start. So far so good. There hasn't been any rain for a while and the dry, hot conditions discourage mosquitoes  It doesn't take long to get used to being a bit hot and sweaty during the course of the day and it is a real blessing not having to negotiate the mud and puddles that always accompany the rainy season.

The dry conditions are also really good for our pupils’ sporting activities – especially football. Last year we were able to improve the standard of our football pitch a bit but it is still usually unusable after heavy rain. This afternoon conditions were ideal and the boys in classes 7 and 8 made the most of it. Rugby purists that I know (self included on more than one occasion) disparage football as a bit of a ‘soft’ game. Anybody present at a football match here in Kosele would come away from the game with a very different opinion. I really don’t know where our youngsters find the strength and stamina from. They take football extremely seriously and view it very much as a contact sport. Most of the time the children play in bare feet and use a home-made football. Despite many generous gifts of new footballs from visitors it seems to be very difficult to avoid puncturing the ball on the thorn hedge or the fence that surrounds our place. The ball that most African children play with is made out of plastic carrier bags carefully layered and kept together with string. It’s often smaller than a full sized football but despite this is still very heavy and solid. Watching the ball being punted from one end of the pitch to the other and the fierce tussles for control of the game I could only admire the boys’ skill and obvious lack of pain receptors anywhere in their feet!

I am very grateful for the way that our staff look out for me while I’m here. Janet, the lady in charge of our stores, brought me some eggs this afternoon that she had bought from the market in Oyugis, our local town.

 “There is a rat eating your tomatoes” she informed me.

Sure enough three of the tomatoes in the bowl that I keep them in had the tops gnawed off. The rat is obviously an expert at sneaking in as the tomatoes were fine when I cooked my lunch today.

“I’ll bring some poison”, Janet said.

This seemed the best thing to do. The rats apparently like the poison so I’m looking forward to evidence of an effective rat control initiative. The only possible downside to it is the prospect of the rat (or rats) dying up in the roof space of my house. The last time a rat died in the roof after it had been poisoned it sounded like the ceiling board in the roof was going to come down. I really hope this one will just sneak out and quietly pass away somewhere outside. For the benefit of anybody with a UB40 song going round their head at this point the link is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=353ah1Vkbyg