Who's Afraid of the Dark?

At just a few degrees north of the equator, every night feels like summer in the village of Nyamsong - the fruit basket is full, porch relaxing comes after dinner, and crickets and fireflies set the tone. Until suddenly it's pitch black at 6:30, a can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face so all encompassing that the Milky Way, which I'd only ever seen one after driving up into the mountains of Utah to escape light pollution, is immediately and brilliantly visible over the front yard.

Last night when we got home from dinner in town, where we ate in the dark after the city's power was cut for the fourth time in a week, I could not even make out my house as I approached it, until family and neighbors started yelling "Welcome home" from the front porch, where they were all busily shelling dried string beans without so much as a candle. "Hello, whoever you are...let me go get my headlamp and I'll help". I stumbled into my room, found my keychain flashlight, and went to get my laundry bag to start some overnight soaking. I shone the light back toward the door to guide my totally disoriented self before freezing cold in my tracks. There, frozen too in the light, was a rat-sized mouse with a tail as thick as a toothbrush, perched on the woodden crossbar on the back of my door, and ferociously guarding the doorknob of my only exit like a fragile egg. Nearly peeing my pants and feeling the room start to shrink around me, I wondered if I could wrench my window bars apart and dive into the jungle outside. Seemed more doable than approaching this ghastly looking rodent who, even if I could scare hime away from the door, would surely dive off into the depths of my dark room, only to reappear as I reached into my duffle for clean underwear. I'd already been awakened by a midnight snacker crunching his way through my medical kit and had stuffed rags under my door - clearly I'd underestimated the vigor of African-bred, wall-scaling mutant mice. Luckily, Africans themselves are equally fearless, and when I called my host sister to pound on the door and he scrambled away, the family came in as my evac team and ousted the bugger with lanterns, before the entire porch burst into hysterics over my sissiness. Welcome to Africa : )