Of Mouse and Woman

Last night I’m trying to relax after puking my brains out the night before and I hear a rustling. I can tell this isn’t a giant cockroach or an endlessly annoying cricket or a frog or anything else… it’s a mouse. Already at this point I’m enraged. I move some things around my room looking for this unwelcomed visitor. I had just been bragging that I hadn’t had a mouse since PST, damn me. No luck. I can’t find the mouse. I’m talking to my grandma on Skype and all of a sudden the mouse runs under my door and out of my room. Success! I give myself a pat on the back for banishing the mouse although I didn’t do anything. A little while later I’m reading in bed and see a tail disappear on top of my dresser. Again, I look for the mouse and see him! I scan my room for a weapon… Aha! A half filled water bottle and I chase the mouse around my room attempting to beat it to death. No such luck. I’m completely exhausted, sick, and definitely more terrified of this teeny tiny mouse than it is of me. There’s nothing left to do except call my absolute saint of a boyfriend to cry and have a pity party for myself and my bad luck with this mouse.

Flash forward to this morning. I’m able to forget the mouse due to exhaustion and sleep through the night with the aid of earplugs. I start to tear apart my room looking for mouse poop and hoping to beat the hell out of the mouse. Yes, I know that my rage at this tiny animal does not seem in line with the crime, but I’m on a roll. Since I saw the mouse on top of my dresser (seriously, who knew mice could climb?) I take everything out of my dresser looking for a hole because if I discover that the mouse has eaten or pooped on my clothes I’m going to have an aneurism. Luckily, no poop or holes found and I resolve to start locking my dresser so no mouse can get in… hopefully. I take everything out of my room, sweep it, bleach it and look where I think is everything this evil aggressor could be hiding. No mouse. I leave my house in peace to go to the Post Office, more on this later.

Later in the day we don’t have any power and I’m reading in bed and I see that damn mouse on top of my dresser. I flew out of my bed in fear, anger, and disgust and started WWIII against this mouse. I took my headlamp and started searching for a hole which I found behind my dresser. I also found the mouse. Since my door was open my brother Ziabata walks into my room and sees me crouched next to my dresser, wearing my headlamp, water bottle held aloft in kill position. Needless to say he about died laughing and asked me what was wrong. I told him the story and he said that if I went to buy cement and I got him a Coke he would fix the hole for me.

I’m on cloud nine with some money in hand when Jeenaba sees me leaving and can’t believe that I’m about to shell out 25 cents for cement all because of a little mouse. Ziabata was also in disbelief when I actually came back with a Coke for him. He said it was a joke. In my head, I was willing to get him a Chicken Dibi dinner if he would take care of the mouse. Ziabata and I move the dresser out of the way and then he does an amazing job fixing the hole. He mixes the cement and even finds spare tiles that match the rest of my floor so everything is even. While he’s doing this my job is to sit on top of my dresser to avoid said mouse and hold my headlamp up so he can see what he’s doing. Ahmed also helps in this game by bringing in the new toy I gave him courtesy of Lynn. It’s one of those yo-yo type things but it’s not on a string, it’s on a metal track you turn upside down and the yo-yo changes colors. He obviously loves it and it created a lovely colored strobe light affect for Ziabata to work under. I was really impressed with Ziabata’s work and super happy that my hole is fixed and my mouse problem is hopefully coming to end. Just to make sure we made the mouse a lovely cocktail of poison and banana flavoring. Hey, I’m not taking any prisoners.
Now, since I alluded to the lovely Post Office….

Shout Out Roll Call!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lynn: Quite frankly, you rock. I may have received our birthday package a little early, but it was actually excellent timing. I’m about to go back to the village tomorrow and the Cliff bars were an absolute necessity that I didn’t have until today! My favorites! The granola Mrs. Mays packets are also delicious (yeah, I had to try one) and I almost fell out of my chair when I saw the Zingermann’s chocolate! The movies I will save until our birthday as another treat, but they all look great. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I previously mentioned the toy you sent Ahmed. It has been a great hit with my entire family and I love it because it’s what I like to call a solo game aka I can give it to Ahmed and then he can play by himself and not annoying me for upwards of 20 minutes. Awesome.

Barber Family: You’re package may have been lost somewhere over the Atlantic for the past month, but it finally arrived and was amazing. Just yesterday I was talking to another volunteer about food cravings and I mentioned bagels and you sent me bagel chips! Yay! You also sent my absolute favorite vegetable chips which I’ve already dug into and a couple other of my personal PC favorites. A special shout out goes to Ana for her hilarious letter and great movie selections! Oh and I almost forgot the Pringles and the banana chips and the yogurt covered pretzels… delicious!

Shirley: The letter queen strikes again! Twice to be exact! Granted the letters were written two weeks apart and I received both of them today, but I love getting letters. Letters are definitely the best part of packages. One of the cards you sent had a drawing of a sheep on it. I was letting Ahmed open the letters and he was absolutely flabbergasted that there are sheep in the US so I got a big kick out of that. Thanks again!

I just saw the mouse again! AHHHH!!!!! And my room absolutely reeks of banana flavoring that I used in the poison so the next time I see this mouse it better be dead! I’m promise that I’m not usually this vengeful of a person! I just want to make it through the night without a mouse hopping into bed with me!