For those of you who don’t speak Kinyarwanda Imbeba is a mouse. And they are really using the word mouse generously here, the imbeba in question was most certainly a well polished rat. Me and the this particular imbeba became acquainted a few nights ago while I was sitting in my bedroom doing homework and saw him scamper across my room. Considering the fact that I had taken my Mefloquin that night (Malaria medications that are prone to cause insomnia and paranoia) I knew the battle was on, this mouse was leaving my room before bed time! My frantic attempts to move my trunk around and catch the mouse, instead caught the attention of our umucozi (house boy) who came in to investigate why the muzungu was making so much noise. Obviously my make shift mouse catching device – see also my PVC Pipe material chamber pot – was taken away from me as the umucozi tried to help me. Eventually I was sent out of the room because me jumping every time either of us moved was sending us both into hysterical laughter and slowing down the process considerably. Finally the mouse was caught and removed from the premises but not without my host parents getting a pretty good laugh at how upset I was by its presence. (If I hadn’t been upset they wouldn’t have removed it at all). Papa Yason informed me in French that there was no reason to be afraid of mice because they cannot eat people, and there was really no convincing him that there was any other reason to be afraid of an animal. Finally, we agreed to disagree as I told them that Americans hate mice and that all Americans would have reacted the same way – sorry for throwing you all under the bus with me there Americans but I was really getting nowhere. As a nice gesture they did give me something to block the gap in my door from future imbeba attacks and they told the house boy to be extra sure that no more enter the house because for some mysterious reason they really freak out the American.
No comments:
Post a Comment