The rat in Ambatolampy

I'd already seen a Malagasy rat in the lodgings in Tana, but it didn't surprise me any less when I opened the bathroom door to see one scampering between the shower and toilet room. I am the sort of person who screams in that specific high-pitch so often seen in cartoons, and, like the elephant also in cartoons, I leap up onto the nearest chair for fear of the rodent climbing up my leg. It had come through the drain from the shower, a small hole just the right size for a Malagasy rat, which are much smaller than I've seen in Aus and the UK and they actually look friendly and kind - it must be a Malagasy thing. So Hary checked again and said the rat had gone, so I stuck a stick in the hole to prevent it coming back.

3 days later I opened the toilet door, to see the rat again but this time, quite dead! I had squashed him somehow in the door and I wont go into detail but I think it must have been painful...so there was the poor rat, probably half starved as I must have locked him in the bathroom with no way out for 3 days, I know this as his droppings were everywhere - why I hadn't noticed this before...

So, half disgusted that I had to pick a dead body up and half guilty for taking the friendly-looking rat's life, I did the minimum burial service possible and chucked him in the garden with the rubbish. He was gone the next day.