Rats in the Attic

This is not some funny metaphor/child reference like the fact that there really was a gorilla in my suitcase. I think I really do have rats in my attic. Or at least bats. So do I live in a mud hut? No, but my house is mainly made of mud. What they do is pack bricks of mud to make walls and then put a thin layer of concrete over it. There is some brick around Rwanda, if you have a fancy house but there is none on mine. My roof is made of tin. Unlike some houses where you can see straight up into the wood beams and tin roof from the rooms, I have a nicer ceiling. From what I can tell it is plywood but painted quite nicely…fancy plywood if you will. But from the outside of the house there is room for animals of the small and weasley variety to get in between the roof and the ceiling.

Something rustles around up there in the deep silence of night. Usually right above my bedroom, as if it knows which area of the house I try to sleep in and purposefully tries to burrow into the ceiling right above my bed. Have you shivered out of disgust yet? This is yet another time I LOVE my mosquito net. Somehow I have convinced myself if anything were to fall from the ceiling, my net would protect me. Don't ruin my logic because it's the only security blanket I have about the situation. I don't see any hope in trying to make my visitors leave. There's really no flawless strategy for that. I'll just keep my head buried under my covers when I think of rats in my ceiling…and thank God I'm not one of those PCVs who has snakes and bats and rats and tarantula-like, poisonous spiders actually inside their house.