Community Together-ness and Rats

The new Bambara word of the week is 'toto', as in: Toto ka bon! (The rat is huge!)

Let me explain through story. Michele and I were in Sikasso sitting at Trinh's house having a discussion in the shade trying to stay cool in the 100+ degree weather. I had just bought ice cold Fantas at the nearby boutique and we were just at the point of starting to feel refreshed when we heard a bit of a commotion from the other side of the yard. Trinh's house is laid out thusly: Her house has a large walled in yard shared with another concession. A Malian family lives in this concession and work for the Peace Corps as the guardians of the property. Basically, Trinh lives alongside her neighbors so she doesn't have to live alone.)

Anyways, the commotion begins and we get up to see what's going on. Musa is yelling to Mymuna his wife to run to the other side of the wall to head off 'it'. Being the curious tubabs we are, we follow out the front gate and around the side of the wall in the street. Miriam (my 2nd wife) and some other children follow in hot pursuit getting excited from all the obvious hurrying. When we get around the wall opposite Musa, Mymuna stuffs the sack she is carrying into a head-sized hole at the bottom of the wall and backs up quickly as if to get away from whatever is trapped in the hole in the wall.

As we wait, Musa yells from the opposite side of the wall that he can't get to 'it' from there; someone has to get to it from our side, the outside. By now, because we are on the side opposite the late afternoon sun and there is abundant shade, this just happens to be where the entire neighborhood is out hanging and lounging before dinner. A young man in his late 20's comes running up to take charge. He pulls at the sack to remove it from the wall and begins throwing fist sized rocks into the opening. I run up close to hand him one after another as he slams them as hard as he can into the beast. I use the term 'beast' because as I was on the front line I saw it: a rat, easily the size of a cat or a 2 litre bottle of coke squirming in the hole trying to dodge the rocks. The length of my forearm minus its tail.

The rocks don't seem to phase it and we're running out at this point. It seems to know this and darts out of the hole. Leaping and bounding over feet and screaming men and children, the rat takes off down the street. One man jumps out and tries to kick it like a soccer ball (since it is roughly the same size) but misses and swings wide. 10 men, 25 children, and a dog chasing after the biggest monster rat I have ever laid eyes on. Eventually, after a few solid minutes of running back and forth someone is able to hit it with a tree branch and the men capture it. Several more minutes pass while the men debate: 'if we're going to cut its throat, someone has to hold the rat's head still.' They offered us the job and we promptly refused. So did many other African men. This thing was a beast with inch long fangs. Eventually, they put it down and the rat menace was over.