Repulsive!

I've now become quite good at telling the following story, both in English and in Pulaar, and it's made me quite popular around the village, so now I'll share it with you! I'm setting this to post on January 20, which is nearly a month and a half ago from when it actually happened, just for your information, and for those people who don't realize I haven't actually been in front of a computer every day for the past month. (it's possible to schedule a post to be published at a future date).

Here are the notes from my journal:

"03 Dec. 2010 As I write this I am listening to the little crunches of a mouse consuming a frog in the gap between my 2 trunks. I am revolted. Last night and this night I heard munching, but I thought it was coming from outside my door (although I wondered why it was so loud). Now, of course, I am wondering how a mouse and a frog managed to make their way into my house. The mouse, by the way, is absolutely disgusting. It is the most hideous mouse I've ever seen. It's got beady little eyes and a pointed nose and matted fur and it's so obsessed with gorging itself on the frog that it didn't even mind when I shone a light on it. Now I don't know what to do. At the moment I'm huddled atop my chair, and no longer will I laught at the portrayals of housewives spotting a mouse and promptly leaping atop a chair, screaming. Mice are neither cute nor adorable and it is a disturbed mind who thinks to purchase them from a pet shop for any purpose other than to feed to snakes. I'm toying w/ the idea of crushing it between the trunks, and then asking Amadou to clean up the mess. But first I've got to work up my courage, because if the mouse realizes what's up and comes dashing out, face and paws smeared with frog guts, I might just scream. Plan aborted. It has just stopped munching and is now squeaking. It has somehow been alerted to my plan, and I didn't even step out of my chair."

But then I go ahead with the plan anyway, and afterwards write the following:

"Well the mouse didn't die, but it's definitely trapped so I feel safer walking around my house until I can fetch Amadou. It stinks over there, though. I should have done a more thorough sweeping job these past few days, because one of my socks is over by the trunks, looking disgusting and poop-covered. Also, on closer examination the critter is not a mouse, but a shrew-ish, vole-like thing. So maybe I'll revise my cruel opinion of mice, but probably not. God that thing is vile."

And later:

"The vile vole story has a less satisfactory ending that I'd hoped. After I ate some bananas and brushed my teeth I went outside. Only Neene was there. I told her about the situation and she said call Amadou. So Amadou comes to the door looking groggy and none too pleased and he comes to see the mouse (b/c that's what I call it in Pulaar) and he says "can I kill it?" and I say, "Umm, yes please" and he brings a spear and stabs it. But he doesn't wait for the thing to die or even stop moving before bringing it out from between the trunks. So the wounded mouse escapes & disappears. Amadou claims it went out the door, I claim otherwise because the door is closed, though possibly it pushed it open. But we move the bed (yay, I got to sweep under my bed) but it was not there. Amadou claims it ran up the wall into the roof to the outside. I don't know much about voles, maybe they can climb walls. But wherever it is, it will soon die, if it hasn't already, and when it does I hope it did escape to the outside and run far away so that it doesn't stink up my house more than it already has. The mess is mostly cleaned up, except for some small poops I'm noticing around the house and the frog's blood stains on the floor near my trunks. It is not even 7:30 am."

However, this story is possibly the best thing that could have happened to me, because it's given me something more interesting to converse about than, "What are you cooking?" and convinced most of my neighbors that I hear Pulaar now.

Rugi (another Rugi, who's an adult, not little Rugi), after hearing the story: There aren't mice in America?
Me: There are mice, but they don't eat frogs!
Hysterical laughter.

Sini: [I don't remember Sini's question, only my response. But she asked a question to which I replied...]
Me: The frog didn't have legs! The legs were inside the mouse's stomach! The legs were not there!
Hysterical laughter.

And one night, as I'm heading into my house for the night:
Neene: May Allah not bring a mouse into your house.
Me: What did you say?
Neene: Say, "Amen"
Me: Amen, amen.

Throughout the week, random people, most of whom I had not even originally told the story to, would say things like, "Hope there weren't any mice in the house!" or if they wanted to hear the story again, "What was in your house?" or "What was the mouse eating?"

A FROG!!!

Blech.