the first time i had anything to do with a mouse was while visiting a girlfriends house in my community in israel. she was suffering from a mouse in her kitchen that would leave droppings in the silverware drawer. i was glad i didn't have to deal with that. years later i kept finding things broken in my pottery gallery when i would arrive in the morning and couldn't figure out how and why. eventually i found the famous tell tale signs of their little black pellet droppings and realized i have a mouse there. ugh. i didn't want a mouse there. and slowly the investigation began, of trying to figure out where it was living, how to get it to leave, and why it had even chosen to come?!
i saw that my major concern was a kind of creepy feeling that something is hiding and moving around and sneaky and doing damage in my private space, and i didn't like it. and that imaginary long tail repulsed me. that's all i knew. one day while i was at the potters wheel i saw it race across the room. ah....now what? ugh again. i decided to start talking into its little hole in the ceiling everyday and ask it to please leave. then again, while sitting at the potters wheel, it crept right in front of my view and just stood there looking at me. i was surprised to see it and actually look at it without being repulsed. it was actually quite cute, and real, with a presence. hmm...i asked it to please find another place to live. it scooted away, and i never found any more broken pottery or droppings and was pleased that the conversation helped.
then, when i came to bali for the first time i again met a mouse....or rather a rat! in my open air second floor bathroom i noticed the long tail exiting from the open air wall as i entered. ugh. maybe i imagined it? here in a fancy hotel i have a rat? but the recognizable pellets in my underwear drawer each day, even though i moved them off, was proof...i decided to just ignore it all, since i would only be there for a couple more days, and didn't really feel there was anyone to complain to about it, and lets just focus on the good things.
my next trip to bali was at a bamboo thatch bungalow among rice fields at a small resort. the first night, while i slept, i suddenly heard things falling in the bathroom! in the morning i found my toiletries on the floor instead of on the shelf. hmm...what was that? the following night the same thing. and then i realized that there must be a rat "coming through" and moved it all down to floor level so i wouldn't wake from it every night anymore. not wanting to have to confront that rat face to face, i took to knocking on the door and jiggling the handle before entering so it would run away before i appeared. it worked...
next, i had bought a lighter in order to light the mosquito spiral each night. it was a "big" purchase and my only real possession other than the clothes i had, and i placed it in a place of honor on my table. a few days later it was gone. i looked everywhere, but couldn't find it, getting into the city to buy another one was a bit of a drag and not what i wanted to be doing with my time, and also "not fair"! who took my lighter? my only possession? for a few days i kept looking under the table, shelves, bed, trying to find it. but alas, i figured it must be the sweet young balinese boys that clean my room everyday. i was disappointed that they would steal from me. i thought we were friends.
the owners were away for a few days, and when they returned i took one of them aside to inform him that his staff apparently stole the lighter from my room, and i think he should know about it. he was dutch, and in a curious tone he said "i am not so sure that that is the only possibility....we too have been away for a few days and when we returned to our locked room, all of our papers and things on the desk and kitchen were scattered all over, not like the way we had left them, and no one had entered our apartment." i looked at him trying to figure out what could it possibly mean? and then he said that they had put rat poison down before they left and that he thinks it might be that.
i returned to my room, and again looked at my empty thatch table where the lighter had been, and suddenly perceived the famous little black pellet droppings. i was so excited! good, it is not the nice housekeeping staff! it is just a rat. good. i didn't give it any further thought. the following day i had just finished paying another $1000 for an additional month at the lovely bungalow by the sea. that night, while fast asleep in my hanging mosquito netted bed, i awoke from hearing a big "THUD" and then a screech! what the heck?!*& and then a scrambling sound in the dark and another thud and screech. i realized i had rats crawling up the wall inside trying to get out from the opening at the top, but they were falling on the floor from great heights. ugh...i was shaking and hysterical. it disgusted and repulsed and frightened me terribly.
i managed to run out of the room and call the night guard, who didn't find any more in the room. i sat on a chair by the sea all night till dawn, wondering what happened and what to do? my dream bungalow turned into a nightmare. the next day i could barely speak, still in trauma, and ended up writing the owners an email explaining what happened and asking for a solution. no room would be rat free, since the rats live in the surrounding rice fields and now that the rice has been cut, they have no place to hide, so they pass through the bungalows until they will have the next crop of tall rice sheaves to shelter them again. i want out! i will not live like this! and they said fine....but kept the $1,000....i'm the one that decided to leave...no refund on cancellations, and that i must have had food in my room otherwise the rats wouldn't have come there...a high price to pay for falling rats, but worth it for my self respect.
the next place i found had to be guaranteed rat-free. they assured me it was. i moved there. and yes, for most of the year, it was. but i did see the cat one day playing around with something that sure looked like a dead mouse...and when i asked the gardener, he smiled and said, yes, there are mice, and rats, in the coconut trees, but they don't bother the people. i decided to pretend like i didn't see it. anyways it wasn't in my room. but one day, towards the end of the years stay there, i awoke at night from a chewing sound. "where is THAT coming from?" it sounded like it was in my room?! i laid still in bed, trying to decipher what direction, and what animal? it sounded right underneath my bed, and like a cat chewing...i quietly got off the bed, turned on the light, and bent down to have a peek, and all i saw was a long (UGH) grey tail, and the cat, staring at me. at least the tail wasn't moving! i went to call the gardener who was guarding that night, to help me, and when he came, yep, the cat and tail were gone...having jumped with prey out the open window. when the owners returned a few days later, i mentioned the incident, but did not receive any response....i too was playing it low key and not making a big deal out of it, especially since it was a dead rat...
my second to last experience, to this day, was at the villa by the sea that i was living in. the owner, who until now had only told me lies in order to get money from me right and left, had come to clean the hot water heater. i thought it could well be a ploy to get in the house and steal another something, so i kind of hung around. out of the blue he said "the mouse likes the soap". what is that supposed to mean? and when i went into the bathroom, i realized that there were little teeth marks on my lovely bar of lavender soap from tuscany! the mouse is eating my soap?! a mouse!!!!!! "yes, he comes from the coconut trees, he likes to come at night and eat the soap." somehow the little tiny tooth prints and the word "mouse" didn't sound as horrible as "rat" and long tails...but i wondered what could possibly be his ulterior motive in telling me about the mouse? maybe he figured i would want to leave if there is a mouse, and he keeps my money? i decided to again, ignore it and just put the soap away after using so there wouldn't be anything tempting him to come over anymore...(the rat, that is....) but in the end, i think the owner himself was the real rat! always sneaking around, stealing, disappearing, and disgusting!
the last (hopefully!) incident was at my new place. i had a lovely open air shower and bathroom, with banana leaves hanging down into it and the blue sky above. a cute little bar of hotel soap had been placed by the sink. i opened it to wash my hands and the next day, it was gone! hmm...where in the world did the soap disappear to? and then i noticed that my little container of salve for sores was also missing from the counter top. strange...and that night, i woke up from all the commotion that was going on between my ceiling and the roof....ugh...the tell tale sound of mice running around, and heavier thuds of ....rats....that weren't as light on their feet as the mice. well, at least they are closed inside and no openings to my room, but not how i want to sleep tomorrow. and i had, again, just made a deal with the owners for the year. i am not going to stay if there are rats....
the following day i told my balinese friend who had arranged the place for me. he said he would speak with the owners. they had big smiles on their face when i saw them later in the afternoon. they laughed and mimicked with their fingers "mice scrambling" and told me they are taking care of it now with a trap. a nice young man came to my room and crawled in through one of the ceiling boards to put the trap there. i hoped he might find my lost salve, which was important for healing any sores i get. but no luck, he didn't find it or them but left the trap. afterwards he went into the bathroom and spotted the little bar of soap up by the ceiling with little teeth marks in it. i was so happy he had seen it, in his quiet way, and asked him to look for my salve...and sure enough, found it, partly eaten, but at least still intact and usable. i laughed, imagining the mice trying to drag this stuff into their peephole and that it was too big.
two nights later, i again heard the pitter patter of their feet and knew i was leaving the room anyways, so why make a fuss. and in the usual synchronicity that things happen here everyday in bali, i was sitting on the porch of my new room in the village, with my laptop, and a nice looking young man walked into the gate and large open porch area and said hello to me. i politely answered back hello, not quite sure why he was coming up to me. then he asked if i have come to live here now because of the mice. it was then that i realized that he was the sweet fellow that had placed the trap the other day. and suddenly he happens to be just in my front courtyard?! i told him, yes, that i have moved here, he said he caught the rat. "RAT!" ugh...and then he lifted his forearm and showed me how fat the body of it was.....just like his forearm! but he caught it so, all is good....i told him i am happy that he caught it the other day, but there are more, since i heard them this morning before i moved.
as i sat on the veranda and wondered why i need these rats and mice in my life, i recalled that when i had first arrived here the thought had crossed my mind, if i have changed at all...have i learnt any lessons from my experiences here? can i maybe look at a little mouse as if it is a gecko and just accept that it is part of the nature here, and not out to attack me in any way. the geckos go scuttling about hiding behind lampshades, and appearing our of nowhere, yet they don't bother me. the squirrels go running along the trees, and they don't bother me. and throughout my travels here in bali i have shared my rat stories with people and alot of them just shrug it off...no big deal...i wondered if i can learn to love what is? but i must admit that when laying in bed at night, i prefer not to hear any scratching or scuttling about...what is it that makes something seem so disgusting and repulsive, and another, just a fact of life? and i even wondered if by wondering about all of this, i myself have invited this "lesson" into my life! as the saying goes :be careful what you ask for, because you just may get it.
No comments:
Post a Comment