Seven Miles from Sanity

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Trip Start Jun 15, 2004 Previous
Entry Trip End Sep 2006

  7 Miles, Belize
Saturday, September 17, 2005

Day 1: A couple of weeks ago I was experiencing fitfull sleep. I kept hearing this "squish, squish, squishing" noise coming from somewhere in my kitchen. It made that annoying sound of a 9 year old village child who is so bored he decides to annoy you by crinkling a plastic bag repitiously. So I got out of bed, donned my headlamp, and began searching for the offending noise. It sounded like it was in a drawer. I hesitantly pulled out the drawer, expecting a jaguar to burst out and claw me to death, leaving nothing but my rotting remains for the villagers to cower over, saying, "Shucks, she was kinda nice. I get the solar lantern, you can have the portable CD player." Nothing jumped from the drawers. I went back to sleep. Again the noise. Again an investigation. Again nothing. Another try at attempted sleep. I nearly wept in an episode containing the phrases, "Why me?!" "Why can't I just go to sleep like everyone else?!" I decided to turn on the radio real loud to drown it all out.

Day 2: The swishing, I assume, was going on all night. But I, with my Benadryl-induced slumber, slept through it all.

Day 3: Swishing. Swish swish swishy-swish swish swishing I wand to sleep swish what can I kill swish swish why did I join the Peace Corps swishing swish Paid Carribbean Vacation my ass this place is hot and I can't sleep swishing swish maybe I could transfer to Cayo like everyone else swishing swish swish. Ack!!!
I got out of bed with an exaggerative sigh for affect, put on the headlight. Then, in what can only be described by outsiders as an Obsessive Compulsive Rage (OCR), I removed every piece of anything that could ever make a swishing noise. All bags, paper and plastic bowls (just in case), were gone. At this point I resigned myself to having a mouse somewhere and I figured if I could remove the noise, the source of the noise would leave as well. Not to be. More swishing. More cursing from my mouth. Finally I dozed off, pretending that the mouse swishing was actually some type of white noise produced by one of those sleep machines that people with electricity have.

Day 4: Adilzar, a strong-bodied 19 year old and two of his friends came for a visit at sundown. We sat talking. Then the swishing commenced. I told them the problem, that somewhere I had a mouse but could not locate it. Before I knew it, all three were on their knees disassembling my stove. That's the thing about villagers. You tell them you have a problem, they get right up and start to solve it. There's not of this "strategic planning meeting," it's "let's get 'er done." I figured if it all failed and I was left stoveless I could at least dig myself a fire pit and go totally native. No sign of a mouse except lots of poop in the stove. So actually there was a big sign of a mouse come to think of it. No luck in finding the culprit and yet more swishing. The very strong boys decided to lift up my sink/shelf/drawers. And there it was: a mess of plastic bags, three tiny, hairless, pink squeaky baby rats and one huge white and black mama rat who bolted immediately (apparently mama rats aren't too territorial). She scrambled up my wall. I got a good look at here. This was not your average cute grey mouse. This was the kind of animal you imagine taking up residence in a Fire Swamp or running in the sewers of some third world country like Texas.
The guys are yelling to each other in rushed Spanish. The rat is running on my rafters. Then, the boys, with machetes and one flashlight among them, are swinging and running on my rafters as well, still speaking in a panicked Spanish something akin to "Aribba, Arriba! Andale, Andale! Aye yie yie!" My dog Darby, who was totally useless throughout this ordeal, didn't know what to do but thought that the sight of three people with a flashlight scurrying around in my rafters enough to warrant a deafening bark. If you happened to be passing by my house when this was all going on you perhaps would have thought it a poor attempt at an imitation of a terrible Steven Segal movie and just keep on walking.

Epilogue: Sadly, three small squirrely squeaky rats lost their lives. I am sleeping much better now. The mama rat left the scene and has not been seen or heard of since then. Adilzar continues his work in Placencia as a beach cleaning boy but still moonlights as an exterminator in 7 Miles. Darby the barking dog is okay. She still barks a lot.

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