Rats

A while back, I woke up in the middle of the night to the distinct noise of a rat scurrying around my room. Normally when rats wake me up at night (not an altogether unusual occurrence), I thrash around a bit or shine my flashlight at them, and they scurry away, not to be heard from again (until the following night).
This rat, however, was different. After my usual thrashing, I started to drift off back to sleep when...scratch, scratch, scratch. He was back! Dumb rat. We repeated this cycle three or four times, until I finally gave up, put in my headphones, put on This American Life, and fell back asleep. The rat had won this time, but I would have my revenge!
The next day, I went to Le Mus (lay-moose), the store in town to buy a rat trap. There were two choices. One, a metal one that looked like it would cut the rat's head off, the second, a glue trap. Not wanting to deal with decapitated mice in the middle of the night, I bought the glue trap. I wasn't really sure how I'd get rid of the rat once it was stuck in the glue trap, but decided I could figure it out when/if I actually caught one. As in, I'd get my host dad or one of my brothers to deal with it for me.
I put peanut butter in the middle of the tray, and laid it on the floor by my dresser, where I'd seen the rat use my hanging island dresses to scurry up to the roof the night before. I fell asleep with dreams of a quieter night.
One thing I had not anticipated (although I really should have thought this through) was that when the rat got caught in the trap, it would still be alive enough to make some pretty terrible noises while trying to escape. I woke up, and after failing to be able to ignore his distress enough to fall asleep, decided to put him outside. I wasn't sure how effective the glue actually was, so to hedge my bets, put him in my Peace Corps issued bucket. The glue plate fit nicely in the bottom, and with a sigh, I fell back into my bed.
About an hour later, I was awoken by furious squeaking from outside my door. Groggy, and unsure what was going on, I stumbled out of bed and opened the door, surprising two cats in the act of killing the now defenseless rat. They screeched and ran away, although I couldn't help but notice that one of them was running quite awkwardly. Glancing down in the bucket, I realized why. Not only was the rat gone, but so was the glue trap!
The next day, Toffee, my favorite cat, had unsightly dirty, sticky patches covering one side of his body, and the glue trap has yet to reappear.

PAD Part 22

Chickens like to roost in trees, apparently

Brothers and blogs

Meet my brother Jojo. At 16, he’s the oldest of my host siblings. 

I gave him my camera for a bit over a week (it was only supposed to be a couple of days, but hey, island time!) so you all could see Ambae from a different perspective. He ended up taking a lot of photos, and posted here are the highlights.

PAD Part 21

Sandrine and Tari, two kids in town I enjoy quite a lot. I was walking home from work and Sandrine (on the right) came up to me and asked me to take a picture of her, so of course I obliged!

I'm Dreaming of a White (Sand Beach) Christmas

Being the hottest part of the year here, Christmas didn’t really feel like Christmas. Where was the hot chocolate? The ugly Christmas sweaters? The evergreen trees next to the roaring fire? Where was the constant Christmas music blaring out of every store and on every radio station? How could it be Christmas when I lie in bed every night trying very hard not to let any part of my body touch any other part of my body because it’s just so darn hot?

Bonus post: meet my Vanuatu family, Christmas Style!

Kathleen gave me a Santa hat, so of course I had to get pictures of everyone on my family wearing it. My other post was getting to be too long, so enjoy the bonus post!

 

My mom, Suzanne, and dad, Kevin 

PAD Part 20 (Sort of...)

In preparation for a different blog post, I gave my host brother my camera for a little over a week. This obviously made taking a photo each day more difficult, so I came up with an alternate plan. I followed my normal morning route to work, taking photos along the way. I thought it might be a fun way to show a little bit more concrete snapshot of my daily life. Enjoy!