Em.N.Honduras: Mouse in the House

Picture this: A breezy Sunday morning begins as my eyelids fluttered open and my ears were greeted by a medley of singing birds at 7 am. My flip flops slapped the tile floor on the way to the kitchen. I began making bread while Kadian worked on cleaning the kitchen. I realized we need more water. Somewhat begrudgingly, I changed out of my pajamas into real clothes, shoved some money in my pocket, grabbed one of the empty bottles and headed to the pulperia. My scratchy morning voice called out "Buenas dias" and I let the man know that I need water. He came out and unlocked the three chain locks that they place on the water "cage" overnight. I took the full bottle, thanked him, and headed home. Once I got home, I realized I forgot to pay. Shoot. So instead of giving my arms a break like I had planned, I quickly took the second water bottle and took off running down our street. The man looked quite relieved to see me again. I apologized and handed him the money. Then he came out to give me the next bottle of water.

We came to a good stopping point in the kitchen and went over to Miss Myla's house. The night before she taught us how to make homemade flour tortilla and refried beans. We ate about four or five mini baleadas each! Delicious--way better than the ones in La Princesita. Anyway, we had saved some of the dough from the tortillas to make flitters in the morning. Flitters are an island thing that Miss Myla grew up eating. Basically, you cut slits in the tortilla dough and fry it in a bunch of oil. You can combine them with beans or go sweet with mango jam, honey, etc. She also taught us how to make her super delicious oatmeal. What a feast! When we finished eating, Miss Myla insisted that we relax for a little while and watch the food network with her. Now that I am cooking so often, I love watching the food channel! So interesting. We happily lounged around for a good while, but eventually we had to go back home and finish cleaning.

The cleaning finally finished, I decided to take a shower. HOWEVER, when I got out I was in for a surprise. When I was trying to decide what to wear a little face stared at me from on top of my hanging clothes. A MOUSE!!!! Yes, a MOUSE was climbing on the tops of my hangers and my clothes. I shrieked with all my might, snatched my towel, and flew out of the room. Once I had slammed my door and was securely locked in the bathroom and started stomping around and yelling some more. Don't ask for the logic behind this. I was so mad that a mouse had chosen my room to hide in. My room is so clean and there wasn't even any food to attract it. Kadian hollered for Christian, and thankfully he came running. After a few minutes of those two searching around and not finding anything, I came out of hiding. Christian was starting to disbelieve me, so I had to vindicate myself. I found some clothes to put on and then stood on the bed screaming with Kadian while Christian tried to find the mouse.

We finally found it on the very top of my "closet" like thing that holds 90% of my belongings. It was hiding in between my suitcases. Great. Christian stood on my stool and asked Kadian to help him hold up the suitcase that the mouse was hiding by. Well...I'll spare you the gruesome details. It felt like forever, it probably only took them a couple minutes once she started helping. Basically, Kadian did not want to see the mouse, so she just held it up and looked away. But one time she dropped the suitcase. Actually I think she may have dropped it a couple times. Whatever the case, there was a lot of screaming and exclaiming going on and the mouse kind of got smushed by my suitcase. Disgusting. Christian carried it out in a box. I took one picture of the poor thing, so be warned the picture is at the end. Poor little mouse. I never wanted it to end that way. Nevertheless, I have the best little brother (even if he does occasionally scare me with bugs and the like) and roommate.

So that's how the mouse got out of my room. Now back to my room. The mouse search had left it in great disorder and now everything was contaminated. I was thoroughly grossed out by all my clothes and suitcases not to mention we had walked all over my bed in our flip flops. Let me just say this: I would not have survived the Kadian's help. She bleached and scrubbed my closet and sanitized my suitcases (the stuff I was most dreading), not to mention she also helped me do all my laundry. There is a friend that sticks closer than a sister--and she has a heart of gold. Between the two of us, we cleaned just about every inch of my room. There were no other signs that a mouse had been in my room, so we think it must have gotten in that day. In a way, I think I kind of deserved this. As much as it hurts me to say that, I was so disgusted the people ever had mice in their houses. The missionaries last year had a dead mouse in their house, and I figured their house must have been really dirty and disgusting for a mouse to be in there. Turns out, it can happen to anyone. Even neat freaks like myself.