A Rat and a Chipmunk

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Yesterday was memorable.

Having run out of most everything, I desperately need to go grocery shopping. It was raining and I detest going to the market in those conditions but it was necessary. My favorite older woman who usually sells me pineapples greeted me warmly and then demanded that I give her “Christmas and New Years.” She had said that to me last week too but I ignored the request and just greeted her with “Happy New Year!” Apparently that wasn’t enough, and here she was insisting again that I give her something. I tried to challenge and ask why I should give her something more. I choose to buy from her instead of directly from the truck so she can get a bit of business. I bring my friends to her and now they buy from her too. I don’t have a relationship with her apart from buying pineapples. So from my Western point of view, there is no reason why I should buy her a present. (A few days later I asked my friend Issa about what was going on there and he said I should buy her a chitenge or small gift because she is old. She has the right to ask me because she is my elder. And if I don’t give her something, not money or food, then she will keep asking me every week until I do it or begin avoiding her.) Annoying. As I slipped and slid through the mud on the way back to my car, there was a drunk guy following me and continually touching me. I tried a variety of tactics but the guy persisted so I ducked into a little kiosk selling pirated DVDs and asked the gentleman there if he would kindly tell this drunk guy to leave me alone, which he thankfully did.

By the time I got to Shoprite, I was in a foul mood. Seeing a “Closed” sign on the front door didn’t improve my mood. They were having electrical issues and so remained closed until further notice. Later I took Brendan to the doctor to try to address an on-going allergy issue that Brendan seems to have (not a confidence inspiring visit when the doctor changes his mind with my ideas and suggestions, me knowing very little about the subject matter) and we tried Shoprite again. This time it was open but there were no refrigerated or frozen foods available so no chicken, yogurt, cheese or butter. I then drove to another smaller grocery store which didn’t have chicken either but I could have bought a package of chicken skins had I so desired (I am feeling revolted even as I write this). While shopping, I changed my week’s menu in my head at least three times, each dish lacking one key ingredient that wasn’t available.

I took the boys to Georgi’s place in the afternoon and let them play and swim with Patric and Jemma while Georgi and I caught up and I got stocked up on more good books to read. When it was time to go, she offered to have the boys spend the night. The boys were thrilled at this spontaneous invitation, and I got to have an evening with Peter before he left for a week of teaching at the refugee camp. On my drive home I saw a beautiful rainbow through the rearview mirror. Things were looking up.

Peter and I enjoyed a candlelight dinner for two and watched a movie, not worrying about cooking something the boys would like and getting them through their baths. The house was so quiet and peaceful. But the day wasn’t over.

Let me preface this next bit by saying that I have been known, on occasion, about fifteen to twenty minutes after falling asleep, to semi-wake up with a start, convinced that say, there was a raccoon in my bed or a tarantula crawling up the mosquito net. I must be pulling up out of a dream and it still seems so real. So I was a tad bit worried when I awoke at 11:15 to strange sounds coming from some part of the house. I waited until I heard the noises a few more times before I woke Peter, afraid that he would think I was hallucinating/dreaming again. But he heard the scraping noise too. Having had someone break in through our back porch before, we immediately feared it was happening again. But then it seemed like it was coming from overhead instead. Knowing that some robbers have broken in through the roof at another MEF home, we were afraid a robber would come crashing through the trap door in the ceiling at any moment. Being pacifists, the only thing coming close to a weapon in our house were the boys’ field hockey sticks. So I gave Peter one (yes, I gave and he took – he wouldn’t have thought of that himself as the primary peacebuilder in the house so maybe it was Adam and Eve all over again) and grabbed the other myself. As we tiptoed around the house, Peter isolated the sound and it was coming from the kitchen. We listened harder and heard something knocking around under the sink. At first, still operating under the robber theory, I was puzzled why the robber would be under our sink. Peter realized quicker than me that there was some kind of animal or rodent under our sink, so then we had to come up with a plan. We were counting on the fact that whatever it was would have to be terrified of two muzungus with raised hockey sticks, so we turned on the kitchen light and flung the cupboard door under the sink open. And there was a rat, stuck to a glue trap that we had set out to catch cockroaches. It was flailing around, stuck by it’s long tail to the glue trap, which had become attached to our compost bucket, which thankfully was relatively full so it didn’t get knocked over. So then we had to decide what to do with it. Using our hockey sticks, not as weapons, but more like a shepherd’s staff (how is that for biblical imagery?), we managed to get the rat into a bucket. Our hearts were still pounding and our stomachs were feeling queasy from all the excitement, and our minds were like jello. Making a decision what to do with the rat was difficult. We finally decided to put rat poison into the bucket and hoped that the rat would die quickly. It seemed more humane than drowning it (one of the spoken solutions) or whacking it to death with our hockey sticks (an unspoken solution). When we finally crawled back into bed, the adrenaline was still pumping through our bodies, preventing sleep. After a half hour of tossing and turning, we finally agreed to watch an episode of “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series and after that we were finally able to fall asleep. Good thing the boys were away and we were able to sleep in this morning after our adventurous night.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

After this past week, disposing of a rat in the middle of the night feels like a cakewalk.

The day after the rat episode, Peter was eating lunch and saw a much smaller version of the midnight visitor scurry across the kitchen floor. With a sinking feeling, we realized we had only caught the mama. More traps were set and I am happy to report that there was another death in the household the next day. Unfortunately Peter wasn’t around to dispose of it. I know this is a gender issue, my firmly held belief that it is the man’s role to deal with rodents in the house. His absence made me expand my own gender role.

Peter left Monday for Meheba Refugee Camp with Issa Sadi and Maria (an MCC SALTer). Just getting there was a bit of an adventure, having left the house at 6:00 to catch the postbus which they discovered no longer ran to Solwezi. So they were back at 7:30 for a second cup of coffee and a shower, which there hadn’t been time for before with the early departure. They left again at 9:30 for a 10:00 bus. Peter will have to give you the details on that fiasco but they finally left Kitwe at only 2:30, with Peter standing in the aisle for the first hour because they had oversold the seats.

I had a somewhat busy week ahead: the boys were starting back at school, I had a teacher’s workshop to attend one morning and to teach another afternoon. I was scheduled to do something at the school’s assembly on bullying, that being the subject of this term’s curriculum, and single parenting all week. But those plans were all scrapped when I woke up on Tuesday with a pain in my jaw. I had Georgi, as a doctor, take a look at it at school before she drove on to her clinic. She took one look at it and declared I had the mumps. MUMPS! Who gets mumps these days? I couldn’t believe it. I went home, took some ibuprofen and went to bed. When Georgi came to check on me in the afternoon, my left jaw was already swollen. There is nothing to be taken for mumps except pain reliever, since it is a virus, and a very contagious virus at that. I was officially quarantined for the next 9 days, having to cancel all my work plans. Since I was to leave on the following Monday for my week at the refugee camp teaching about trauma, that too had to be figured out.

Not wanting to pass on the virus to the family we carpool with, I made arrangements to not drive the kids to and from school this week. But Wednesday morning, as I was trying to recognize my face in the mirror, Jason called out from the front porch that his ride still hadn’t come and it was getting late. Brendan woke up feeling sick and being worried that he might have the mumps too, he was staying at home. I quickly jumped in the car and took Jason to school, him fretting about being late, and me experiencing pain in my jaw with every pothole.

Brendan and I both spiked fevers in the afternoon, so Jason found us shaking and shivering on the living room couches. Brendan slept for several hours and I was concerned for him, not knowing if this was the mumps or malaria. By the time I went to bed later in the evening, it was pretty clear to me that he had malaria again so I started him on Coartem, which I always keep on hand now.

By Thursday morning, the right side of my face started to swell as well. I looked like a chipmunk which would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so painful. The pressure on my head, ears, jaw and neck was excruciating. I would count the hours until I could take more ibuprofen. During the one or two hours when the painkillers were doing their job, I would be able to get something done. I couldn’t chew or even clamp my molars together. My salivary glands must have been blocked because my mouth was so dry and anything I managed to gum turned to paste and then it was difficult to swallow it.

When the kids were finally in bed, Brendan’s hair soaked with sweat from his fever, I felt the need for confession. Forgive me Father for I have sinned:

I yelled at the loud and obnoxious kids in our front yard to go away after trying the polite way twice.

I cursed when I broke my favorite cup.

I allowed the boys to watch two movies. And an educational video in the evening.

My vanity reared it’s ugly head when I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the shape of my face. Jason was kind enough to point out the double chin due to swelling.

I succumbed to a tiny pity party.

Friday I was at my lowest, in pain, tired of taking care of Brendan’s sickness as well as my own, and exhausted from not sleeping well. I was wishing Peter was home to listen to Jason and give him some attention, make sure Brendan was taking his medicine, do the dishes, give the boys baths, and to monitor Jason’s science project so that I could just stay in bed. Peter’s text messages assured me that he wished he could do all those things for me too and was distressed that he had abandoned me in my hour (week more like it) of need.

Brendan and I were still both feverish and I had trouble falling asleep Friday night, as I was drenched in sweat. I awoke very early Saturday morning to the sound of Brendan on the toilet with diarrhea, and then vomiting. When I finally got him settled back into bed, I couldn’t go back to sleep, worried about Brendan’s health. When it got to be a reasonable time, I called Georgi for medical advice, and the possibility of getting some help. I got the advice but she had malaria too so couldn’t be of help. I followed her medical advice and took Brendan to the clinic for a malaria test and to see the doctor. The test not only came back positive but also showed that the malaria was not responding to treatment. He had been on Coartem for three days, and was supposed to be taking the last dose that morning so it should have shown up in his blood as battling the malaria but didn’t. The doctor prescribed a different medication and said if that didn’t work then he would need to go on injections again.

We returned home to a dismal sight. Our trash pick-up service failed to pick up our garbage yesterday and so I left the bag on our porch in the hopes that they would come today. In the hour and a half that I was at the clinic, the crows had attacked the garbage bag. All our refuse was scattered across our porch and part of the yard, including the broken glass from my favorite cup and bathroom trash from my monthly visitor. In addition there were ants and bird shit everywhere.

The pity party was no longer tiny. It was a riproaring bash.

The day wouldn’t have been complete without a temper tantrum so Jason kindly provided that. Our neighbor, in a kind gesture, invited him over to spend the night. However, I know that they do not sleep under mosquito nets and with Brendan so sick and unresponsive to medication, I felt it necessary to take precautions against anyone else contracting malaria. The invitation also created a problem of fairness since Brendan was sick and couldn’t go. Jason remembers the one sleepover two years ago when he got malaria and I had to fetch him late at night to come home while Brendan stayed. So life wasn’t fair. As he tore off his bedsheets and screamed, he continued to remind me of this fact of life.

The issue was resolved a few hours later when a mosi net was installed next door and Brendan reluctantly agreed that Jason could go, despite his feelings of jealousy. Since Brendan was feeling a bit better, he spent the evening there but came home to sleep. Brendan was feverish during the night but there was no vomiting, thank heavens. He ate a bit of yogurt for breakfast and went back to the neighbor’s house. Aline kept the boys all morning, checking on me periodically and berating me for not letting her know sooner that I was so ill. With Brendan home sick with me all week, I had had no time to myself so this was a welcome change. I put on worship music and tried to put the house back in order before Peter returned. It was Sunday and the first morning I woke up not reaching for the ibuprofen first thing. I still took some though to try to continue reducing the swelling under my jaw.

I was no longer quite so weepy, not nearly as bad as the night before. When my family called to check on me, I cried on and off during our conversation. The book I was reading didn’t help matters any. I had picked up Still Alice, not the best book to read when already feeling down. I wept through the whole book, finding the story of a woman diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers and her rapid deterioration so sad. I used to work with elderly who had Alzheimer’s when I was in grad school, and I grew up around them as my mom had dedicated her life to serving this population as a social worker. I finally decided to push through and finish the darn thing and be done with the crying.

Peter arrived home around noon today. He was a sight for sore eyes (actually my eyes were the only part of my face that wasn’t sore). He had an interesting week at Meheba Refugee Camp but I will let him guest blog about that. Arrangements have been made for me to postpone my teaching by a week so that I can fully recover. A week from today I will make the journey to the camp and spend a week with the community leaders talking about trauma and recovery.

There were a few good things this week, like the support that others gave me. One friend brought bread and soup, others sent text messages to check in, Peter called when he could. Other than the one tantrum, Jason was content and entertained himself while Brendan and I laid lethargically on the couches. Aline, our neighbor, had the boys most of Saturday and Sunday, and brought us a noon meal on Sunday. Family at home called and sent emails to support me. It was most definitely not one of my better weeks. As Carmen would say, “I didn’t love it.”