Roommates

Living in a banda (basically a circular hut with a thatched roof), I have grown accustomed to bugs and spiders as ever-present roommates. I simply move my bed away from the wall so that when the spiders descend at night they do not do so on my face and avoid walking around without shoes on.

However, lately my roommates have become a bit more substantial. Most of them are frogs and toads. It was just toads at first and they were fairly cute. I tried shooing them out the door or catching them and releasing them, but there are many of them. As soon as I shoo one out, I find two more hopping around. I would say I average four toads in my banda at any given time. The frogs are a little more bothersome, only because their skin is wet so in their travels around my room they collect all the dust, dirt and old spider webs behind the furniture and along the walls (it is best to keep at least 6 inches away from the walls at all times). They are also clumsier and floppier with their big webbed feet so they make a lot of noise.

One night I finally gave up on shooing them out and decided to embrace them, figuring they were probably making a dent in the bug and spider population. The next morning when I was preparing to put my shoe on, a toad jumped out onto my chest, causing me to make a noise I hope to never utter when there are people around to hear me. Despite this incident, it is far easier to leave my shoes on my chair at night than to endlessly shuttle frogs and toads out of my banda.

Today I returned from the field at lunch to find my suitcase outside in the driveway. I had no idea what that was all about until I went into my banda and it was clear that it had been mopped. I figured the cook had moved it out to keep it off the wet floor. Sort of. The cook had only mopped because when he was sweeping he smelled something and upon moving my suitcase found a deceased frog. His English and my Swahili are both poor, so I am unsure if he found my corpse under or inside my suitcase, but I prefer to think it was under. This incident has caused my to regard these pets more warily, but still there are like a billion of them so I can't really keep them out. I am just making sure my bags are zipped.

In the last couple nights I have also sighted a shrew. I first saw the shrew a couple days after moving into my banda when it ran across the bathroom and into a hole in the wall. Since then he has become more bold and this morning I watched him for a good ten minutes as he crept along the wall and among my shoes snatchig up spiders and eating them. All in the full beam of my flashlight. The shrew does not fear me, clearly. He is cute though, and I actually saw him doing his part to rid my banda of spiders, so he can stay so long as he doesn't decide to die in any of my belongings. Hear that shrew? He's behind my chest of drawers at the moment. I am currently taking suggestions for names. My favorite will be given to the shrew and all runners-up will be assigned to frogs and toads.