Roger the RAT that is. He died, and I couldn’t be happier. Bwana Asifiwe, SANA!!!
Many of you know me very well and how I name just about everything. The ducks at the pond, my GPS, the Ape hanging from my rear view mirror, even Joe the over-achieving rooster when I first arrived in Nakuru, Kenya. Well since Roger began with an “R” it was only appropriate to name my annoying Rat roommate that name.
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry. I CAN DO EVERYTHING THOUGHT HIM, JESUS CHRIST, WHO GIVES ME STRENGTH.~ Phillipians 4:12-13
I know I haven’t shared a lot about my living arrangements here in Kenya. I am not much of a complainer anymore these days in my seasoned years. I have learned, as Paul did the secret to life is being happy in all circumstances. I have been homeless before, lived in a commune, a dorm, with 40 women in one room, many apartments, had a perfect little house in Prairie Village (aka by KC people as “Perfect Village”), then lived in a half million dollar home with a pool, a double wide in the backwoods country of NC, a tent by lakes and rivers, and then countless other living arrangements and now well… it really isn’t all that bad. To be honest with you though, I am very grateful that it is not a grass or mud hut. Trust me I have visited them to pray/counsel with some of the rural tribal people and I am not sure I would be too excited to live 24/7 in one of those. Not that I couldn’t learn to find contentment there. It’s just the whole culture shock thing would have been a little in over the top if that was where I was going to stay at the beginning of this mission trip, especially moving from Beigeville, Johnson County, KS USA.
The house has a cement floor, and cement walls. It has a tin roof, and some type of particle board ceiling. It has two bedrooms, a cooking room, a living/dining area, one inside bath to be used by the family and an outside latrine and bath stall to be used by the slave quarters and guests like me. I am NOT very good at estimating square footage but if I had to guess I would say it is about 600-800 square ft. and that is very generous. Mind you I have had closets bigger than the kitchen which only consists of a sink with no water, but a line that could run from the rain tank, and an area where a charcoal stove is put for cooking. There is also a coffee table for chopping and a tree stump for the women to sit on while they stir each course over a charcoal cooking stove.
The house is on maybe two acres of land, that has a chicken coop, a 5x5 outside cooking area, an underground tank for water harvesting (rain), a 10 x10 “servants quarters” where 3 other pastors live and the rest is all garden area. The current issue of drought has killed all the cowpeas we had planted so no green crops on the east side, but we still have the kale on the west side. One side of the plot has a 10 to 12 foot cinder block fence. Some of the cement block fences plots in this area and the school have extra protection with broken glass at the top of the fence to prevent thugs from trespassing. The fence between our one neighbor is wooden about to fall apart and made out of branches broken off trees. We have bars on the inside and the outside of the windows and the doors, which made me wonder, is this what it feels like to live in KCK? Or parts of Durham, NC.. hmmmm things that make you go hmmmmm LOL
Anyhow, back to Roger. Well after the first week of sleeping here or not sleeping because my time clock was messed up I could hear something upstairs running around. It took me at least two weeks to get up the guts to ask the family what in the world is that running up in the attic, which by the way the crawlspace is completely open and in my room, which I share with Assistant Pastor Jotham’s sister, Millie and the baby, Isabell. She left her family, a husband and 2 other children, in the village up near Sudan and Uganda to come live with Pastor Jotham and Jael to try and get some medical treatment in the city of Nakuru. Three of us sleep in the same room. I asked the Pastor about the visitor above us, he said “um no maybe it is a mouse”. Maybe he was afraid of my reaction, so he said it was a mouse. Sometimes the vocabulary is so different here I have a hard time understanding what they mean. So anyway when Millie told me it was a rat I thought no it has to be a squirrel. Or maybe I was just trying to convince myself it was something other than a RAT.
See Roger was starting to wake me up. Every morning around 3 or 4am it would make a bunch of noise crawl down the closet which is not built in but stationary, and try to get under the door to scavenge for food. Millie was so sweet, as is the entire church and she gave up her bed for me to sleep on when I arrived. So she and the baby slept on a foam mattress on the floor. Eventually, thanks be to the grace of God, I was able to buy another bed for her and the baby to get off the floor. Millie told me and Pastor Jotham that the previous night Roger tried to nibble on her toes. Oh my goodness. Carpenters build hand made NICE bed frames for about $45.
See you don’t want to offend Kenyans by rejecting their generosity, for instance Millie (short for Milka) always insists on washing my clothes and sheets. They get very hurt and frustrated and a little angry if you don’t eat all the food or let them serve you somehow or whatever, so I let her wash my clothes by hand. Every week she hand washes them and hangs them to dry. She wanted to iron them to but I insisted, t-shirts and broom (supposed to be wrinkled) skirts do not need ironing. The only thing I have to wash is my underwear, and it is kind of a taboo secret thing too. You must wash those inside, and then when you hang them you MUST cover them properly with a shawl. Otherwise if I don’t have my underwear, not my bras, properly covered, I have shown the neighbors and the men staying in the slave quarters that they, the women, didn’t show me how to properly wash my most private clothes. Yep, culture shocks all the way around, and sometimes daily.
Back to Roger, well three weeks was about all I could take. Then I started to pray really hard. Lord, I am not complaining, really. You have provided a very nice place for me to stay, and food, internet, television, electicity, and to think about it Lord embarassingly I am quite spoiled. But Lord, you know how important sleep is for me. If it be in your will can you please have Roger find a new home very soon before I KILL one of your creatures. Perhaps the neighbor’s house would be a better home for him. After a week of waiting for my prayers to be answered, I took things into my own hands. I know we are supposed to wait upon the Lord, well I am a human and I will make mistakes and I really just didn’t care if that prayer was answered anymore or not. I was tired of Roger waking me at 3am! When we walked to town yesterday, I was determined we are getting rat poisoning, and I WILL KILL ROGER. Patience is not a fruit of the spirit I have been blessed with, yet, but y’all must be patient with me ‘cause GOD IS STILL working on me.
Anyway I believe Roger must have went to rat heaven last night, as what I heard of him last night was just a lot of radical squirming, flopping and very strange not normal noises. I thought I heard some squeaks, but that could have been the baby Isabella’s breathing. But as for ROGER, he never made it down the closet. Bwana Asifiwe!
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven; a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.~. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
May you RIP Roger…….
I will NOT miss you, nor will I have to repent for killing you. Now I can have full 8 hours sleep, and I am a very happy American Kenyan Mzungu (white person).
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