My last post was written while Susan and I were sitting in the morning sun eating our usual breakfast of porridge with banana and honey, and debating what to do with the weekend. Shortly after I’d finished typing I mentioned the large number of bites I seems to be getting and couldn’t quite work out where they were coming from. Was it perhaps worth putting the blankets out in the sun just in case we hadn’t completely got rid of the fleas? So we did, and sure enough as soon as the sun hits the blankets there were fleas hoping everywhere... well that explains the bites then.
So ensued a morning of taking all the bedding out and hand washing it, putting the mattresses in the sun and steeping the really thick blankets to try and drown any fleas that weren’t killed by the sun. Having done this all two weeks previously it was getting a bit tiresome but needs must so we ploughed on.
On Saturday night I shivered in bed wrapped in a million layers of clothes as the flea infested blanket was not yet dry. It actually gets pretty chilly here at night and the locals keep telling us that over the next 2 months it will drop below freezing after the sun goes down, so sleeping without a blanket , especially in a house where the windows don’t shut properly, is not a pleasant experience.
On Sunday morning, I was in the shower when Susan shouted for me to come as there was a rat in the kitchen. Sure enough there was a very large black rat with a long tail right in the middle of the kitchen floor. It was one of those slightly-groggy-rub-the-sleep-out-your-eyes-am-I-seeing-things type moments. The rat was obviously slightly groggy too, having eaten some of our poison, as it didn’t move. Susan went to get the guard while I went to get some clothes and by the time the guard arrived the rat had hidden behind the fridge. The guard made several unsuccessful attempts at getting it out by bashing it with a broom handle, which didn’t work and the rat managed to find a hole in the back of the fridge to crawl into and disappear/die. Not great. Over the next few hours as the sun got hotter, the smell of dead rat got stronger and stronger and our resolve to stay and beat them got weaker and weaker.
We were debating our next move, when like a guardian angel, one of the housing guys appeared with the news that there was another apartment we might like instead. It has 3 bedrooms but it’s a bit of a mess he said. Still they would paint it and get new curtains and mattresses for us. Would we like to see it?
The new place is in even more of a state than the old place was. But at least there are no rat droppings and very few soft furnishings to become flea infested. So we said yes please, we would like it very much and in the mean time we would move into the guest house while they get it ready. Very optimistically they reported that it would be ready by the end of the week but having seen the state of it I’d be surprised.
So back at the rat infested dump, we pack up out stuff and cart it all to the guest house at which point Susan find her new bed covered in cockroaches. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. There followed a minor flipping out and thankfully Jenny and Pat have taken pity on us and let us have their spare room for the last two nights. Don’t get me wrong, cockroaches are definitely part of African life, but on top of the two weeks of cleaning, the fleas and the rats it was all just a little too much. Still I am now recovered and planning to head back to the guest house soon.......
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