May 21, 2006

Spring is here! Spring is here!

Just kidding, made you look. There is actually no spring, summer, fall and winter in the Congo. There are only two seasons, the dry season and the rainy season.

We have officially entered the dry season. The dry season has finally descended and the air has cooled down considerably. It feels much like the emerging spring in Washington DC. I am getting this weird mixed feeling of ecstasy--an ingrained feeling in my body is telling me to be happy, happy, happy because it feels like spring and the buds are opening, the birds are chirping and babies bunnies are being born.

What's strange is that the weather's been almost consistently warm and sunny here so I really shouldn't be feeling this way.

****************************************

I was talking to a neighbor about our rat situation: we have HUGE rats in our courtyard. They are about as large as her 6-months old cat. The f%$#ing things live in our metal drum that holds about 30 apartments' worth of trash. In the evening when we get home and flash our lights to find a parking spot, a rat or two will scurry back to the open pipes or the drum. Our conversation proceeded as follows:

Me: "We need two or three cats in our back parking to get rid of our rats"
Her: "Hey man, we need a Puma! Those rats are huge!"

That actually seemed like a plausible solution. I've been here too long.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I realize this is truly pathetic, but I refuse to even walk back there where the trash is - every time the trash needs to go out I plead with B to do it. This is especially sad as I haven't even ever seen the giant cat-sized rats myself, I've only heard about them. But the thought of one of them scurrying (lumbering?) across my flip-flop shod foot (or anywhere in my general vicinity) makes me shudder. I mean, it's only inches up to my face, and I know rats are good climbers. What can I say? I have a vivid imagination.

Beaver said...

Rats rats rats.

Did I tell you about the time in Burkina where we called the plumber because our water pipeline was f'd up and he found that it was RATS that were clogging it up?

The most disgusting part is that we got the repair for free because the guys assessed that keeping the rat for his dinner was payment enough!