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The life and death of two rats.

My suspicion arose as I went into the kitchen at the project, and saw that the pink bin had been raided. However, since it was still early I just gathered up the rubbish and went to put it in the green bin. It was quite startling when the bin started to move as I opened the lid. The shuffling noise together with a glimpse of a grey tail gave me enough information to briskly put the lid on again and sit down in disgust. There was no doubt about it- a rat was trapped in the bin, and it was still alive.

I was trying to deny what I had just seen, especially the fact that only a few meters from me there was a big, ugly, disgusting, alive rat trapped in a green rubbish bin. Even so, my mind kept returning to what I was to do with the situation, slowly facing the fact that I might have to be the one to kill it. Luckily for me (and not so luckily for him) one of our faithful male volunteers showed up at that moment. So I informed him of the fact that we had a rat in the green bin, and that if he wanted to kill it, could he try to find a stick and not get the broom all bloody. Thankfully he took my hint, and even found some rat poison which killed the rat slowly but surely.

Now if you read the title closely you'll have payed attention to the fact that it says "two rats", and no, I didn't make a mistake. This is in fact my second encounter with a rat in the project in the last few weeks. The first time I was contently sweeping the floor, and as I pulled back the door which was against the wall to clean behind it, a big, fat rat ran out and legged it to the kitchen. Completely surprised I reacted in the way any normal female does by screaming for our faithful male volunteer to kill it. This time it wasn't quite as clean cut as today, and the killing of the rat left a trail of blood which then had to get cleaned up.

I wonder how many more rats I will have to encounter before heading off to more rat-free pastures. I can tell you this, I will not miss the rats, and I am very grateful that I can sit in my lovely flat and not have to worry about anything bigger than a few cockroaches here and there.

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