Well, I was mistaken about that rat: he just ran by Andrew's toes when Andrew went into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water! Andrew fished out the trap and re-set it, which made an almighty "bang!", sending the rat into a panic. It darted into Andrew's office across the hall way, sending me into a panic!
As I type these words, I hear the sound of battle! Andrew has bravely entered the office, closed the door on his hysterical wife and is now crashing around with a broom, a wooden rod and a mop trying to squash the Invader. So far, it's not working- the wily little thing keeps disappearing into hidey holes.
On Monday, Andrew leaves for Juba again. I am not relishing the thought of another week in a house, with a rat but without Andrew's help!
There is one thought that helps: just 5 more weeks in this Nairobi house- and then we'll be moving out! Apparently, there is a bit of a problem with cockroaches in our new house in Juba, as Andrew reported after visiting there 2 weeks ago. But what is a mere cockroach compared to a disgusting rat?? I guess all things are relative and if I have to choose, at least a cockroach, although foul and malevolent-looking, is not as vicious as a rat!! Maybe having a resident rat is good preparation for steeling me against the cockroaches to come! Although, if anyone knows of any effective anti-cockroach poison or tactics, I'd love to hear from you!
Saturday 31 May 2014
Mission Against Vermin
We may be part of MAF, but these past 2 weeks I have felt like I am also part of MAV: Mission Against Vermin!
It was a dark Monday evening when I first heard a suspicious munching in the corner of my kitchen. Everyone else was sleeping. Andrew was far away in Juba. I grabbed a broom and advanced slowly into the centre of our kitchen, eyes fixed on the corner where gnawing could be heard...With one swift movement, I attacked the cupboard door where the sound seemed to be coming from. I bashed it and crashed the broom against the wood. The munching stopped. Cautiously, I approached the cupboard. I flung open the door. Nothing was there except pots and pans, their metal edges twinkling at me in the light of the overhead florescent bulb.
Anyone who has followed blog posts from "Tales From Tanzania" will know how afraid I am of rats and mice! The suspicion that one might be in my kitchen was very disturbing. I went to bed that night feeling uneasy, jumping at the slightest rustle, scared of encountering a rodent without Andrew being around to protect me!
Two days later, I was dismayed to wake up and discover that our bread had been eaten in the night! I came into the kitchen early to start breakfast for a normal school day, but quickly saw that toast would be off the menu: the bread had been burrowed into from the corner, with big bite marks through the plastic packet and a rat shaped hole protruding a few inches into the loaf! YUK! Now I had proof: a rodent was roaming my kitchen!
Tentative investigation also revealed a few droppings behind the oven. Horrified, I pulled out all the kitchen appliances and looked in vain for the little creature. Happily, I had a lady called Mary coming to help me to clean that morning. When Mary arrived at 07:30, as I left for the school run, I asked her to take everything out of every cupboard, to disinfect the cupboards and to clean all the pots, pans, dishes etc and put all food in the fridge. She scrubbed and cleaned all morning! No more evidence of the mouse was seen that day.
The next day, we found more droppings and items on the kitchen counter had been moved about by Something scurrying about! I was on high alert for combat against the vermin loose in our Nairobi home!
Once Andrew came home at the weekend, we stepped up the effort to discover the hiding place of our unwelcome kitchen visitor. And we found him! Mr. Rodent was snuggled into a compartment within the mechanics at the back of our fridge! We had 2 guests staying with us last weekend and they kindly assisted us in ousting the beastie from his hiding place. This was fortunate, since I had run screaming out of the kitchen as soon as Andrew spotted the rodent in his hiding place! At least Andrew now had sensible assistants, as he prepared for all-out battle:
This is the weapon Andrew used to scare the rat (or was it a mouse??) out of its hiding hole! It shot out of the fridge and straight across the kitchen to disappear into a tiny gap between the tiled floor and the bottom of the cupboards! Armed with a head-torch, Andrew and one of our guests could see it running, terrified, up and down within the thin space:
The rat was foo fast to be caught, but Andrew's weapon did reach in to attack it and possibly injure it. We haven't seen it since, but we rushed out and bought this trap, which is poised with bread and peanut butter bait next to the fridge:
I am a bit squeamish about checking it, but Ben is a great help in peering round to see if anything is caught and reporting back to his cowardly Mum! So far, it lies dormant, although we have just seen a rat on our back patio this evening! However, I can handle them being outdoors. I just don't want them in my house!
On a similar note this week, I had to visit the chemist on Tuesday, to ask for a bottle of nit shampoo to wash all our heads, since we also had a suspected outbreak of headlice! Just a smaller version of vermin! As the kind pharmacist handed me the bottle of chemicals, she enquired as to whether I was familiar with this type of medical formula? I lost my courage and just could not bring myself to tell her that it is the same brand as the scabies medicine we had to order from England when Ben had scabies in Dodoma!
Vermin in the kitchen, vermin on our heads and a now a reminder of the vermin that took up residence on little Ben when he was just 2 years old, back in Tanzania! I am just grateful that here in Nariobi we have good access to traps, super-germ-killing cleaning products and medicated treatments to help us in our mission against all the little nasties which we have been exposed to recently! Hopefully, we are on a winning streak now in our battle to be rid of all the little invaders!
It was a dark Monday evening when I first heard a suspicious munching in the corner of my kitchen. Everyone else was sleeping. Andrew was far away in Juba. I grabbed a broom and advanced slowly into the centre of our kitchen, eyes fixed on the corner where gnawing could be heard...With one swift movement, I attacked the cupboard door where the sound seemed to be coming from. I bashed it and crashed the broom against the wood. The munching stopped. Cautiously, I approached the cupboard. I flung open the door. Nothing was there except pots and pans, their metal edges twinkling at me in the light of the overhead florescent bulb.
Anyone who has followed blog posts from "Tales From Tanzania" will know how afraid I am of rats and mice! The suspicion that one might be in my kitchen was very disturbing. I went to bed that night feeling uneasy, jumping at the slightest rustle, scared of encountering a rodent without Andrew being around to protect me!
Two days later, I was dismayed to wake up and discover that our bread had been eaten in the night! I came into the kitchen early to start breakfast for a normal school day, but quickly saw that toast would be off the menu: the bread had been burrowed into from the corner, with big bite marks through the plastic packet and a rat shaped hole protruding a few inches into the loaf! YUK! Now I had proof: a rodent was roaming my kitchen!
Tentative investigation also revealed a few droppings behind the oven. Horrified, I pulled out all the kitchen appliances and looked in vain for the little creature. Happily, I had a lady called Mary coming to help me to clean that morning. When Mary arrived at 07:30, as I left for the school run, I asked her to take everything out of every cupboard, to disinfect the cupboards and to clean all the pots, pans, dishes etc and put all food in the fridge. She scrubbed and cleaned all morning! No more evidence of the mouse was seen that day.
The next day, we found more droppings and items on the kitchen counter had been moved about by Something scurrying about! I was on high alert for combat against the vermin loose in our Nairobi home!
Once Andrew came home at the weekend, we stepped up the effort to discover the hiding place of our unwelcome kitchen visitor. And we found him! Mr. Rodent was snuggled into a compartment within the mechanics at the back of our fridge! We had 2 guests staying with us last weekend and they kindly assisted us in ousting the beastie from his hiding place. This was fortunate, since I had run screaming out of the kitchen as soon as Andrew spotted the rodent in his hiding place! At least Andrew now had sensible assistants, as he prepared for all-out battle:
On a similar note this week, I had to visit the chemist on Tuesday, to ask for a bottle of nit shampoo to wash all our heads, since we also had a suspected outbreak of headlice! Just a smaller version of vermin! As the kind pharmacist handed me the bottle of chemicals, she enquired as to whether I was familiar with this type of medical formula? I lost my courage and just could not bring myself to tell her that it is the same brand as the scabies medicine we had to order from England when Ben had scabies in Dodoma!
Vermin in the kitchen, vermin on our heads and a now a reminder of the vermin that took up residence on little Ben when he was just 2 years old, back in Tanzania! I am just grateful that here in Nariobi we have good access to traps, super-germ-killing cleaning products and medicated treatments to help us in our mission against all the little nasties which we have been exposed to recently! Hopefully, we are on a winning streak now in our battle to be rid of all the little invaders!
Saturday 17 May 2014
Arabic
Andrew is now flying regularly out of Kenya and into South Sudan as part of his MAF pilot role. When he goes to South Sudan, he often borrows my old phone and pops in a South Sudan sim card to make and receive calls whilst he is there.
When he gives my phone back to me on his return to Nairobi, I find myself receiving text messages like the one below:
Hmmmm- it is not very easy to decipher what this Arabic text message means!
However, help is at hand! Each Tuesday morning for a few weeks, I am joining a class with another MAF lady to learn some basic Juba Arabic! Pencil at the ready, I brace myself for a couple of hours of learning a few words and sounds in this language which is so very different to anything I have ever learnt before. Our helpful South Sudanese teacher is ready to instruct us in her native language:
It is fun to engage my brain in activities more mentally stretching than my usual Mum tasks (making packed lunches, packing school bags, doing toilet training, cleaning up sick, helping with homework, washing up, doing laundry... etc etc!!). However, when I say that I am learning some basic Arabic, I really do mean "basic"!
This is for several reasons:
-partly because Arabic is made up of an alphabet and sounds that are completely alien to my language experiences so far. In fact, yesterday, when I tried to practise some Arabic words and phrases that I have learnt, Andrew looked at me and exclaimed, "You sound like an alien!" !!!!! It is a very difficult language to tackle!!
-my brain is so distracted thinking about my daily Mum tasks in looking after 3 kids and also in planning logistics of our move to Juba in July/ August ( we still have not found a way to get our goods from Tanzania up into Kenya). I have barely any space in my mind to absorb new ideas, concepts and a whole new phonics system!
- Joel has to come along to classes with me. Not surprisingly, he gets fed up and needs attention at regular intervals, so I am easily distracted from the lesson!
-my head is still full of Swahili verbs and vocabulary from our 4 years in Tanzania. Regretfully, I don't get to use my Swahili much in Nairobi, so I feel it becoming rusty already, but I keep subconsciously throwing the odd Swahili word into my Arabic phrases. Out teacher gets a bit annoyed: "This in NOT Swahili!" she cries. In my defense, many Swahili words come from an Arabic root, so there are often similarities in certain words which I can't help but see and then accidentally express!
- finally, it is hard for me to feel seriously motivated to learn a new language when I know that most people in Juba will speak good English! Far, far better than any Arabic I can learn in just a few short sessions! In addition, some in Juba have Swahili, as I found out on my visit there last September. I even met some French speakers in my few days there, so if I can get by in English, French or Swahili, it seems a bit unnecessary to add a new language into the mix and create confusion in my tired brain!
I also know from experience that language learning can take serious, long-term commitment, especially a difficult language like Arabic. It is not something I will just pick up and remember without serious immersion into the culture and language. This is not going to be my calling or mission in South Sudan. I will be there predominantly in a supportive role for Andrew's pilot work and as a Mum, working to keep my family settled and also as a part of a Christian community under MAF, doing what little we can within the local community as we see who or where we can help out .
So for now, I will simply enjoy these Arabic lessons! I will continue to enjoy the experience of stretching my brain a little, the interaction with our teacher and the novelty of trying to express new words, even if they do make me sound as if I have something nasty lodged in my throat! (Maybe that dreadful hacking sound will ease off if I make a bit of progress!!). For the next few weeks, my expectations are gentle ones. My Tuesday mornings will be fun times to look forward to as a time of insight into a new culture, new sounds, new alphabet and new letter shapes.
When he gives my phone back to me on his return to Nairobi, I find myself receiving text messages like the one below:
Hmmmm- it is not very easy to decipher what this Arabic text message means!
However, help is at hand! Each Tuesday morning for a few weeks, I am joining a class with another MAF lady to learn some basic Juba Arabic! Pencil at the ready, I brace myself for a couple of hours of learning a few words and sounds in this language which is so very different to anything I have ever learnt before. Our helpful South Sudanese teacher is ready to instruct us in her native language:
It is fun to engage my brain in activities more mentally stretching than my usual Mum tasks (making packed lunches, packing school bags, doing toilet training, cleaning up sick, helping with homework, washing up, doing laundry... etc etc!!). However, when I say that I am learning some basic Arabic, I really do mean "basic"!
This is for several reasons:
-partly because Arabic is made up of an alphabet and sounds that are completely alien to my language experiences so far. In fact, yesterday, when I tried to practise some Arabic words and phrases that I have learnt, Andrew looked at me and exclaimed, "You sound like an alien!" !!!!! It is a very difficult language to tackle!!
-my brain is so distracted thinking about my daily Mum tasks in looking after 3 kids and also in planning logistics of our move to Juba in July/ August ( we still have not found a way to get our goods from Tanzania up into Kenya). I have barely any space in my mind to absorb new ideas, concepts and a whole new phonics system!
- Joel has to come along to classes with me. Not surprisingly, he gets fed up and needs attention at regular intervals, so I am easily distracted from the lesson!
-my head is still full of Swahili verbs and vocabulary from our 4 years in Tanzania. Regretfully, I don't get to use my Swahili much in Nairobi, so I feel it becoming rusty already, but I keep subconsciously throwing the odd Swahili word into my Arabic phrases. Out teacher gets a bit annoyed: "This in NOT Swahili!" she cries. In my defense, many Swahili words come from an Arabic root, so there are often similarities in certain words which I can't help but see and then accidentally express!
- finally, it is hard for me to feel seriously motivated to learn a new language when I know that most people in Juba will speak good English! Far, far better than any Arabic I can learn in just a few short sessions! In addition, some in Juba have Swahili, as I found out on my visit there last September. I even met some French speakers in my few days there, so if I can get by in English, French or Swahili, it seems a bit unnecessary to add a new language into the mix and create confusion in my tired brain!
I also know from experience that language learning can take serious, long-term commitment, especially a difficult language like Arabic. It is not something I will just pick up and remember without serious immersion into the culture and language. This is not going to be my calling or mission in South Sudan. I will be there predominantly in a supportive role for Andrew's pilot work and as a Mum, working to keep my family settled and also as a part of a Christian community under MAF, doing what little we can within the local community as we see who or where we can help out .
So for now, I will simply enjoy these Arabic lessons! I will continue to enjoy the experience of stretching my brain a little, the interaction with our teacher and the novelty of trying to express new words, even if they do make me sound as if I have something nasty lodged in my throat! (Maybe that dreadful hacking sound will ease off if I make a bit of progress!!). For the next few weeks, my expectations are gentle ones. My Tuesday mornings will be fun times to look forward to as a time of insight into a new culture, new sounds, new alphabet and new letter shapes.
Sunday 4 May 2014
Jail-bird
I am glad that it is Sunday and the start of a new week! Last week had some rather discouraging moments. On Sunday morning, in the wee small hours, Ben was sick. He needed a couple of days to get back to his bouncy self.
On Wednesday, Esther came home from school feeling unwell. Between 4:30 and 10:30pm, she managed to vomit nine times!
On Saturday, Joel joined in with his siblings and was sick a few times as well!
However, all this can be a pretty normal turn of events for a Mum of young children, whatever country she may find herself in. What was less usual and a little more stressful was the fact that Andrew ended up in a Nairobi jail for a few hours on Tuesday! Here he is, with his fellow inmates, in his cell in downtown Nairobi:
Despite Andrew's hesitant smile, he endured a frustrating Tuesday morning!
His crime? Andrew was guilty as charged, of talking on his mobile phone whilst driving the car. The Traffic Police who I dread so much (see blog-post, "Nervous in Nairobi") had apprehended him for the above crime on Monday afternoon. I felt somewhat culpable, as it was me who had phoned Andrew on his mobile, so he was talking with me when he was pulled over by the officials!
Although Andrew had paid an on-the-spot fine, the system here still required that he attend Court the following day. Accordingly, he went early. He endured a long morning- of waiting to see the Judge (in a room full of random offenders, some in hand-cuffs), then being charged, then pleading guilty and being ordered to pay an additional penalty.
Next, Andrew was escorted to the above cell. The local system meant that Andrew had to wait in the holding cell until his penalty was paid at a nearby bank and the receipt presented, accepted and noted by the relevant authorities. Since he himself had been locked up, he clearly could not go to pay the fine in person!!
Thankfully, help was at hand in the form of a Kenyan MAF colleague, who went out to pay the penalty and bring back the receipts on Andrew's behalf. If Andrew had not had anyone to help him, he could have been detained much longer in his cell...
Meanwhile, Andrew had some time to reflect on this new experience of being locked up...and time to get acquainted with fellow offenders, including a friendly Kenyan man who snapped the above picture to give me- the Worried Wife- a better idea of Andrew's circumstances on that stressful Tuesday!
It was a happy moment when I received the text message informing me that Andrew was a free man! I sent a relieved text message back to Andrew. I didn't dare to phone him, just in case he was driving...!!
On Wednesday, Esther came home from school feeling unwell. Between 4:30 and 10:30pm, she managed to vomit nine times!
On Saturday, Joel joined in with his siblings and was sick a few times as well!
However, all this can be a pretty normal turn of events for a Mum of young children, whatever country she may find herself in. What was less usual and a little more stressful was the fact that Andrew ended up in a Nairobi jail for a few hours on Tuesday! Here he is, with his fellow inmates, in his cell in downtown Nairobi:
His crime? Andrew was guilty as charged, of talking on his mobile phone whilst driving the car. The Traffic Police who I dread so much (see blog-post, "Nervous in Nairobi") had apprehended him for the above crime on Monday afternoon. I felt somewhat culpable, as it was me who had phoned Andrew on his mobile, so he was talking with me when he was pulled over by the officials!
Although Andrew had paid an on-the-spot fine, the system here still required that he attend Court the following day. Accordingly, he went early. He endured a long morning- of waiting to see the Judge (in a room full of random offenders, some in hand-cuffs), then being charged, then pleading guilty and being ordered to pay an additional penalty.
Next, Andrew was escorted to the above cell. The local system meant that Andrew had to wait in the holding cell until his penalty was paid at a nearby bank and the receipt presented, accepted and noted by the relevant authorities. Since he himself had been locked up, he clearly could not go to pay the fine in person!!
Thankfully, help was at hand in the form of a Kenyan MAF colleague, who went out to pay the penalty and bring back the receipts on Andrew's behalf. If Andrew had not had anyone to help him, he could have been detained much longer in his cell...
Meanwhile, Andrew had some time to reflect on this new experience of being locked up...and time to get acquainted with fellow offenders, including a friendly Kenyan man who snapped the above picture to give me- the Worried Wife- a better idea of Andrew's circumstances on that stressful Tuesday!
It was a happy moment when I received the text message informing me that Andrew was a free man! I sent a relieved text message back to Andrew. I didn't dare to phone him, just in case he was driving...!!
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