Am I Smarter Than a Rat?

They were there before me, after all. I mean Kenya’s animals. Tourists flock to the Jewel of Africa to see its world-class game, Kenya’s Big-5. So why get so bent about a few furry friends sharing my personal living space?

It all started one morning early in my PST when I found my “home-stay” Mama and our house-girl walking on their hands and knees thoughout the living room. I watched with curiosity for a while. “We’re looking for the...the...nini,” Mama finally said, grabbing a single lace doily from the arm of the couch. “The mice took the other one for their nest.” The two women struggled to lift up the couch so I could see.

“Look,” Mama said, pointing out the big, ragged hole with the stuffing poking out on its underside. “This is serious.”

Loitokitok has almost as many furry as human residents. Not exotics, like the ones I saw on a day trip to Amboseli Reserve a few months ago, though occasionally an elephant wanders into town looking for water. I’m talking about regular farm animals - goats, roosters, chickens, turkeys, ducks, lambs, sheep, cows, etc. Every home has at the very least cats and dogs, a goat or two, and some chicks. And residents are constantly vying for dirt-space on village roads with vendors hauling water-laden donkey carts and Masai men leading their prized cattle to their Manyattas.

What could be more “African” than its wildlife?  Animals – even measly mice – should be embraced as part of the Peace Corps experience.

Unless they are busy building nests next to your bed and making a meal of your dirty underwear, and they are really not cute little mice but a rather extensive family of big toothy rats.

Looking back, I probably never should have even tried fighting them. The rats, I mean. They are faster, more agile, and more adaptable to strange, new surroundings - at least compared to a middle-aged human animal from cushy Pacific Palisades, California, recently relocated to rustic, rural Kenya. But even the hardiest of souls have always had a natural disgust for the creatures, particularly when having to compete for sleeping space with them.

Like my Mama said: “They were here before you arrived; they will be here after you leave.”

She sure had that right. In the end, she could have added that the rats are a lot smarter, too.