The Rat Attack

On a hot summer night in Uganda. I was tucked fast asleep in my bed, wrapped in my mosquito net enjoying my sleep. My roommate was away in the village, so I was all alone in my dark Ugandan room. My roommate, Jayan, had told me that I could keep food in a bag high up on a hook and if it was high off the ground, the rats will not find it. So I had put my pringles in a bag, and hung it on the hook above my bed.

As I began to fall asleep, I heard a few sounds that could have been a rat, but tried my hardest to fall asleep anyways. Deep in my slumber at 4am is when the horror began.

THE RAT crawled on my face, over my head... and then flew up my mosquito net. I quickly grabbed my head lamp, RAN out of the room and screamed. When I was able to calm myself down a bit, I went back to my room, flung open the door and switched on the lights.

To my surprise, the rat was still hovering on the ledge above where my net was hanging. I would not enter my room. I stood at my door holding the door open partaking in a staring contest with the rat.

SIDE NOTE - Let me explain..... this rat was legitimately 6 inches long, then about 8 inches long with his tale. He was fat and scary.

Ok back to my story.

So there I was 4am, head lamp on head, having a starting contest with the rat. I began to think about waking up the girls in the room next to me. One because I was scared and needed comfort, and two because no one would believe me without another witness. So I began to straddle the hallway so that I could have the starting contest with the rat to make sure he didn't move, and swing open the girls door to begin to try to wake one of them up. I didn't want to wake them all up... so I whispered loudly to them. FINALLY, after about 10 minutes, Hillary came to my rescue.

Hillary was my rat attack hero. I could not have made it through the night without her. Fearlessly she walking into my room to get a better look at him. I stayed outside watching her as she attempted to figure out how to catch him. She fearlessly took a laundry basket and caught him. Sadly, he was a super flying rat... and flew out of the basket and under my bed before she could put the lid on it.

Still freaking out, I quickly ran onto my bed to garb my hippo and my pillow and get out of there as quick as possible. As I was on my bed, the rat ran from my bed across the room to Jayan's shelf. Then TWO rats ran into my closet. At that point I was dunzo. Hillary and I screamed, then I quickly took an empty bed  in Hillary's room of on of the girls who is away at the village. It took a long time for me to fall back asleep. But thankfully I finally did.

So I learned my lesson the hard way. I will no longer EVER have food in my room. Pringles are never going to be worth the feel of a rat on my face.

I will end this post with nothing more than T.I.A. ( This Is Africa)