January 19, 2002

So you grow up thinking you love animals, and you even let the spiders live in your house. After all, they are the so-called ‘good’ insects, as you have been told. But you do have limits. The enormous cockroaches and spiders no longer make you flinch; it’s the rats that have squirmed their way into your nocturnal dreams. Unfortunately, you have tried everything to get a grip of the situation before the situation gets out of control. But they haven’t been turned off by the rat poison from Cape Verde, or even the gourmet stuff from Home Depot USA. They are just too fat and too full. Your neighbors have open piles of corn from the harvest, and these white-breasted, big-eared, eight-inch long beasts are fighting their way into your life, no matter how hard you try to stop them.

There are no ceilings in your house, only the roof and its supporting wood beams (termite ridden). They pitter patter across the clay tiles right after dusk, squishing their bodies into your house, onto the tops of the walls that tower a mere 9 feet above your bed. You have already had one ‘close encounter’ with the rat species just a month earlier when you woke up at 3 a.m. to find it on the bookshelf beside your bed. That was a smaller rat. These are HUGE.

So you lace the roof with more rat poison, mixing it with sugar drinks and food to entice their little rodent appetites. But they come in droves, and you find yourself tormented by thoughts of rats climbing into your bed and biting you at night while you dream of the USA and a more peaceful life. Although you usually shower at 9 p.m., you now find yourself taking a bucket bath before 6 p.m., so you won’t have to see rat faces watching you or hear their rodent moves.

The rats have become unbearable, and for the past few nights you have slept in spurts from 10 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., waking at 3, then 5, then 7, and sometimes more often. You feel ragged like a new mom, but only it is not a baby, it is a beast that has created the bags under your eyes. The rats even fight, squealing to each other over who will get the food, the poison that never kills them. You grab the long stick next your bed every few hours, banging the walls, making a hissing noise to scare them away like a cat – you pray they will not jump towards your bed.

When insomnia drives you to the brink of insanity after two days of pure ‘rat’, you decide you will be absent at critical meetings with community members where the drip irrigation garden you funded is to be discussed. You have not slept, and it shows. If it is not your slow progress that will send you home, it is the rats that have come to take you away. So you head to the nearby beach town of Calheta on your way to the capital city where you know you can find a stray cat or two to take home. The neighbors have told you they have no rat problems because they have cats. You have heard a million reasons why cats work besides their nails: their scent, their meow, their mere presence. In Calheta, another volunteer takes pity on you, quickly locating a poor family with an excess of older kittens they want off their hands. Suddenly, things are looking up, two black and white brothers, one nestled in your lap.

There are even an abundance of project ideas on the horizon for you. A youth theatre group that indirectly trains disadvantaged communities on health issues through their skits while gaining valuable life skills: self-esteem, public speaking, exposure to other islands, team work. A one day AIDS walk-a-thon or a multi-day (aka, Breast Cancer Three Day Walk) from one end of the island to the other to spread awareness and educate small towns and villages along the way. A UNICEF grant to provide uniforms to street cleaners in Calheta who currently pick up trash with their bare hands, while wearing open-toed sandals, skirts or shorts, and no masks. An eye and ear exam for every child in school to establish who will be eligible for free or reduced price glasses – hearing aids do not exist here as of yet.

You have been told by other volunteers that February is when most volunteers finally ‘settle in’, and you are hoping they are right because it’s about time you felt like you were at home. Four days of training, just around the horizon, held by Peace Corps staff will soon reunite all volunteers from your group, and you look forward to hearing about their struggles and triumphs. February is Carnaval, which is marked by a boat trip of you and your friends to see other islands, culminating in an arrival in the cosmopolitan city of Mindelo a few days before their big samba parade and celebrations. March will be preparations for the big Earth Day events on April 5th, where you are hoping many villages will work together to plant trees or clean up trash. May is the month before your best friend visits; June is her arrival and a ‘festa’, or party, on another island. July is a possible grant for you to attend the 2002 AIDS Conference in Europe. If you can just get rid of the rats and mobilize your community, things may finally be going your way.