PART I: Mighty Tasty Rats, Finger Nibbling Rats
They say we are never more that six metres from the nearest rat. So what is it about rats that reduces level-headed people to quivering jellies and screaming banshees? Is it the thought of those scalpel-sharp grains of teeth sinking into our flesh? I understand that rats gnaw through at anything softer than their teeth, and that includes metal. Or could it be the possibility that the fanged monsters come down from their high abode at night and take a close scrutiny of our slack drooling faces while we sleep in total oblivion? Or perhaps it is the beady eyes that seem to know everything that goes on in the house. They probably know who we brought home last night and how lousy we are at it too; giggling, clutching their furry tummies, howling at the clumsy embraces going on down below. According to an article I read recently, rats give ultrasonic chuckles and chirps when tickled in the right places. Like human babies, they will actually start to bubble up with laughter in anticipation before the tickling hand has even reached them. And that’s what they do in front of humans. Imagine then the shrieking when we are not watching while they hurdle together over a hole in the roof watching from above. Whatever the reason for this fear, rats have been popping up in different discussions over the last few months. But it is my recent encounter with them in Indonesia that prompted me to write this article.
I don’t know why I am quite nonchalant when it comes to rats. After what they did to me when I was a kid, I really should be traumatised. We had live-in rats; they were uninvited members of the household. My poor uncle Daniel tried everything to rid of them. Mouse traps, DDT on nsima, DDT on utaka- there was no temic poison in those days- but all to no avail. We would often wake up excited in the middle of the night, after hearing the trap snap, only to find a severed tail twitching on the floor and the offender long-gone. Rats are smart. Not only can they get a kick out of being tickled; the little critters can self-amputate their own tails too in self-defence. Taking pity on us, someone brought a cat to solve all our rat problems. But that didn’t work either. My aunt was soon doing everything in her power to bar the nameless cat from entering the house. She had discovered, much to our horror, that the little fellow preferred to dig up the maize flour, which was kept in a bamboo basket, and do its defecation business in there. My unsuspecting aunt scooped up the gooey mess as she was preparing to cook nsima. Worms were still twitching and wiggling in the sodden mush. The cat wasn’t so bad, initially. I used to play with it once a while, but it should be understood here that in African villages, the personalities of cats or other pets are never investigated or encouraged. Pets are recruited to do specific jobs. Then cat started vomiting and coughing up live worms. It was absolutely disgusting; I never touched that cat again.
Before I continue with the Indonesian rats, we should not forget that mice are also a good protein. Mice, therefore rats, are a delicacy in many parts of Africa and even here in S.E. Asia. Uncle Luka would, of course, be greatly offended by this lumping together of rats and mice. To him, mice on a skewer qualify as organic haute cuisine but rats are a definite no-no. They may be different species, but rats and mice look the same to me. In Malawi, marriages have been dissolved over mice; passionate songs have been composed about mice (mbewa zanga); Kids’ foreheads and limbs have accidentally been harvested by hoes in uncoordinated digging up of mice; hands have been bitten by snakes in holes mistaken for mice liars; millions of insects and crawlies are annihilated each year by fires started in search of mice; during famines, stupid foreign journalists have even aired pictures of Malawians eating mice as people’s desperate resort for survival. What a laugh. Mice are a desired meat that no-one ever admits to eating!
My recollection of rat meat is rather vague. Not because I am being vain, but mice were a taboo in our household, which was heavily governed and ruled by the Old Testament. My uncle Luke obviously was and still is a prodigal son. In my quest to taste mice, I was once lured into the headmaster’s smoky kitchen where his daughter reached for the thatched roof, pulled out a row of skewered roasted mbewa and solemnly snapped off a tail for my first taste of mice. To a protein-staved little girl, it probably tasted like heaven. The temptation to gobble up the whole thing was great but her mother knew the exact number of mice on that skewer. This clandestine initiation into forbidden meat could probably have carried on had someone not reported me to my grandmother. The thrashing delivered to the little sinner’s bare buttocks was enough to convert her back to ‘thou shall never touch eat mice’. Despite my little dabbling with mice, rats held different terrors for me. They were the one thing that I dreaded the most every night.
You see, at the age of nine, little girls have no patience to properly clean crusts and scabs of nsima sticking to their hands after a meal. That in itself didn’t present so much of a problem. In my case, however, the trouble came when the meal in question was fish or, on extremely rare occasions, meat. On these occasional feasts, I would go to bed on a full stomach and a satisfied smile on my face. The rats above too would grin and sharpen their tiny molars; for in the dead of the night they would descend onto my bed and take their turn in banqueting. They ate my hands. Well, more precisely, they nibbled on my fingers and nails. What was the most disturbing was the fact that I was totally oblivious to the devouring until the following morning when I would wake up to find jagged rows of teeth-marks crisscrossed all over my finger tips with fraying bits and pieces of skin. Apparently, it is pretty normal for tamed rats to nibble the fingers of their owners. It is a form of grooming; their way of expressing affection. But this was no petty grooming; it was a downright eating spree with real biting and drawing blood. I would then have to spend the whole day trying to hide the shameful evidence from other kids. Once the secret was out, the teasing was merciless; ‘ihhhi eti tamuonani uyu makoswe amudya’. Since then, I have been fortunate enough not to have many close encounters with rats. That is, until my last holiday in Indonesia.
