Dear all,
It's 5am on Sunday morning. I'm blissfully stirring in my sleep, rolling around in what can only be described as a sheet of iron that is known as my bed, happily unaware at the drama that is about to occur. Just as I'm getting to the really good bit of my dream, where Ryan Gosling declares his love for me, I hear something. I open my eyes - it's still dark in my room at Devnar, though a small stream of light indicating the beginning of a new day creeps through the crack of our window, the one without a pane or glass. I decide to ignore the sound and snuggle back down to sleep, when I hear it again. This time, I focus my attention on the floor, and see a small haze of brown whiz past me. I can't see at the best of times without my glasses, so first thing in the morning, in a sleepy daze, I can't quite make out what it is.
All of a sudden, the brown haze is on my arm, and then on my chest. It's small, it's fury, it has whiskers - and it's staring straight at me.
Oh yes, readers - it appears we have a little visitor.
I assure you that I did not react as calmly in the situation as I am coming across in this blog post. Our rat nightmare started when Elena and I arrived back from our October travels - two weeks blissfully spent lazing on beaches in Alleppey, riding scooters around Fort Kochin, indulging in all the Western food available and making the most of the free unlimited hostel WiFi. We were greeted with enthusiasm and love from the remaining students who hadn't gone home for the holidays, Padma and all the aunties and uncles when we arrived back to Devnar late last Sunday evening, and ventured upstairs to our room to dump our bags. Before our holiday, I had made sure to clean the bathroom and the floor and generally tidy up so that we would arrive home, presumably tired, from our travels to a nice clean room and were able to go straight to bed. I noticed as soon as we got in that someone or something had made themselves at home in our room while we were away - packets of chicken noodles that I was saving for a cheat day were nibbled at and open on the floor, as were a packet of biscuits left over from the generous food package my family sent me a month ago. Cursing my self for leaving food out in the open while we were away, we thought nothing more of it and went to bed.
It was the first day back at school the following day, so Elena and I put our post holiday tiredness aside and ventured downstairs to start the day, excited to see all of our students again. It was strangely quiet at Devnar in the first few days - students arrived back in drips and drabs and our lessons were all over the place. That evening saw the first of many encounters we were going to have with the little buggers - one ran over my foot as we were about to go downstairs for dinner, causing me to dramatically shriek and leap up onto the bed, crying my eyes out as El laughed her head off before giving me a comforting cuddle. The next day took a turn for the worst - Elena and I were sat outside our room, happily sticking things down on a piece of cardboard, hoping to make a presentable model of the hydronic cycle for the science exhibition, taking place this week. When Elena got up to get something out of our room, one ran out past her feet, making us question if there were any others in the room. El ventured bravely inside, armed with a broom stick as her weapon of choice, to investigate, while I followed nervously behind, more timid and scared than probably the bloody rat itself. I heard the dreaded scratching noise and leaped onto the bed for safety, when Elena tactfully pointed out that that probably wasn't the best place for me to stand right now. As I saw a flash of a tale wiggle out from underneath her pillow and into a pile of clean clothes, I ran downstairs crying hysterically to Padma, who laughed, told me to eat a chapati, and sent an uncle upstairs to investigate. It turns out there was one rat under my pillow and three under El's. All of the nightmares I had envisioned on my training for India were coming true - and I was not a happy bunny. Poor Elena - she has been given the most useless partner of all time when it comes to all things creepy crawly and gross. We decided to take action and cleared everything out from our room, stripped the beds, mopped the floors and took any form of food that lurked on the surfaces of our room and stored it safely in our fridge. Even when we were munching on Elena's special emergency Maoam sweets that evening in our new bed sheets and Indian moo moo's bought in Bangalore, I was still hesitant to fall asleep, even though I'd taped a broom to the gap underneath our door to stop them coming in at night.
But the nightmare didn't stop there. After one rat made it's self way too comfortable for my liking early that Sunday morning, I lay awake in the dark until the breakfast bell went, and marched downstairs demanding that something was to be done. A very kind uncle barricaded the gap underneath our door that appeared to be the rat's main gateway, and I slept soundly that night knowing they could no longer disturb me. Unfortunately I woke the next morning to find that they like to sneak into our bathroom at night through the ventilation window at the top, and like to knock over our toothbrushes and, quite frankly, shit everywhere. When will the ordeal end? My nightly routine now consists of forcing Elena to check every inch of our room before I go to sleep, and waking up every morning forced to clean the bathroom of teeny tiny rat poos.
And that's not the only account of stress we've had these past two weeks. Tomorrow is the start of the three day science exhibition at Devnar School for the Blind, and the atmosphere feels similar to that of preparing for a wedding. Everywhere you look, people are erecting scaffolding, laying out candles for sale on tables, cooking food, hanging up posters, cleaning and covering any gaps or cracks visible to the naked eye. The kids are really excited and it's all anyone's been talking about for the past two weeks - amidst my moaning about the rats. It's a really lovely and fantastic atmosphere and I feel lucky to be a part of it. However, since last week, Elena and I have completed ten science projects, including an enormous 3D volcano, a polystyrene model of a market in Hyderabad, various posters on food and health and several (really crap) trees made out of cardboard. My hair is still raked with little bits of glue and our bedroom floor is covered in splodges of paint and bits of paper leaves that didn't quite stay stuck on. It came to the point where we would dread a teacher knocking on our door. 'M'am, one small favour for me please...' quickly turns into staying up until 2am trying to get the last piece of papier mache to stick onto your 3D model of a solar and lunar eclipse. The struggle is this: I am not an art teacher. I used to switch over the channel whenever Art Attack came on ITV and settled happily for Spongebob Squarepants on Nikelodeon instead. I have to suppress a giggle when I proudly hand over a project that looks like it's been made with my feet to a hopeful teacher, who looks confused as to why the shiny new teacher from the UK can't seem to even write in a straight line.What's more, all the orders for the science projects were made on the same day with a limited time frame, so Elena and I have spent a lot of nights staying up late, crying into piles of pipe cleaners and PVA glue, munching our way through slightly melted chocolate and listening to Fleetwood Mac to survive.
But we are, at the end of the day, happy to do it. All of the projects we made were done with 3D materials so the kids can touch and feel them at the science exhibition, and the looks on the teachers faces and the many thank yous and the praises (for mostly Elena's work, not mine) make it all worth it. And as we stand in our sari's tomorrow, welcoming guests to the exhibition, I will fondly look over at the cardboard trees for a garden project that I spent many nights painstakingly putting together, and will simply have to laugh when it inevitably falls over.
It's 5am on Sunday morning. I'm blissfully stirring in my sleep, rolling around in what can only be described as a sheet of iron that is known as my bed, happily unaware at the drama that is about to occur. Just as I'm getting to the really good bit of my dream, where Ryan Gosling declares his love for me, I hear something. I open my eyes - it's still dark in my room at Devnar, though a small stream of light indicating the beginning of a new day creeps through the crack of our window, the one without a pane or glass. I decide to ignore the sound and snuggle back down to sleep, when I hear it again. This time, I focus my attention on the floor, and see a small haze of brown whiz past me. I can't see at the best of times without my glasses, so first thing in the morning, in a sleepy daze, I can't quite make out what it is.
Oh yes, readers - it appears we have a little visitor.
I assure you that I did not react as calmly in the situation as I am coming across in this blog post. Our rat nightmare started when Elena and I arrived back from our October travels - two weeks blissfully spent lazing on beaches in Alleppey, riding scooters around Fort Kochin, indulging in all the Western food available and making the most of the free unlimited hostel WiFi. We were greeted with enthusiasm and love from the remaining students who hadn't gone home for the holidays, Padma and all the aunties and uncles when we arrived back to Devnar late last Sunday evening, and ventured upstairs to our room to dump our bags. Before our holiday, I had made sure to clean the bathroom and the floor and generally tidy up so that we would arrive home, presumably tired, from our travels to a nice clean room and were able to go straight to bed. I noticed as soon as we got in that someone or something had made themselves at home in our room while we were away - packets of chicken noodles that I was saving for a cheat day were nibbled at and open on the floor, as were a packet of biscuits left over from the generous food package my family sent me a month ago. Cursing my self for leaving food out in the open while we were away, we thought nothing more of it and went to bed.
It was the first day back at school the following day, so Elena and I put our post holiday tiredness aside and ventured downstairs to start the day, excited to see all of our students again. It was strangely quiet at Devnar in the first few days - students arrived back in drips and drabs and our lessons were all over the place. That evening saw the first of many encounters we were going to have with the little buggers - one ran over my foot as we were about to go downstairs for dinner, causing me to dramatically shriek and leap up onto the bed, crying my eyes out as El laughed her head off before giving me a comforting cuddle. The next day took a turn for the worst - Elena and I were sat outside our room, happily sticking things down on a piece of cardboard, hoping to make a presentable model of the hydronic cycle for the science exhibition, taking place this week. When Elena got up to get something out of our room, one ran out past her feet, making us question if there were any others in the room. El ventured bravely inside, armed with a broom stick as her weapon of choice, to investigate, while I followed nervously behind, more timid and scared than probably the bloody rat itself. I heard the dreaded scratching noise and leaped onto the bed for safety, when Elena tactfully pointed out that that probably wasn't the best place for me to stand right now. As I saw a flash of a tale wiggle out from underneath her pillow and into a pile of clean clothes, I ran downstairs crying hysterically to Padma, who laughed, told me to eat a chapati, and sent an uncle upstairs to investigate. It turns out there was one rat under my pillow and three under El's. All of the nightmares I had envisioned on my training for India were coming true - and I was not a happy bunny. Poor Elena - she has been given the most useless partner of all time when it comes to all things creepy crawly and gross. We decided to take action and cleared everything out from our room, stripped the beds, mopped the floors and took any form of food that lurked on the surfaces of our room and stored it safely in our fridge. Even when we were munching on Elena's special emergency Maoam sweets that evening in our new bed sheets and Indian moo moo's bought in Bangalore, I was still hesitant to fall asleep, even though I'd taped a broom to the gap underneath our door to stop them coming in at night.
But the nightmare didn't stop there. After one rat made it's self way too comfortable for my liking early that Sunday morning, I lay awake in the dark until the breakfast bell went, and marched downstairs demanding that something was to be done. A very kind uncle barricaded the gap underneath our door that appeared to be the rat's main gateway, and I slept soundly that night knowing they could no longer disturb me. Unfortunately I woke the next morning to find that they like to sneak into our bathroom at night through the ventilation window at the top, and like to knock over our toothbrushes and, quite frankly, shit everywhere. When will the ordeal end? My nightly routine now consists of forcing Elena to check every inch of our room before I go to sleep, and waking up every morning forced to clean the bathroom of teeny tiny rat poos.
And that's not the only account of stress we've had these past two weeks. Tomorrow is the start of the three day science exhibition at Devnar School for the Blind, and the atmosphere feels similar to that of preparing for a wedding. Everywhere you look, people are erecting scaffolding, laying out candles for sale on tables, cooking food, hanging up posters, cleaning and covering any gaps or cracks visible to the naked eye. The kids are really excited and it's all anyone's been talking about for the past two weeks - amidst my moaning about the rats. It's a really lovely and fantastic atmosphere and I feel lucky to be a part of it. However, since last week, Elena and I have completed ten science projects, including an enormous 3D volcano, a polystyrene model of a market in Hyderabad, various posters on food and health and several (really crap) trees made out of cardboard. My hair is still raked with little bits of glue and our bedroom floor is covered in splodges of paint and bits of paper leaves that didn't quite stay stuck on. It came to the point where we would dread a teacher knocking on our door. 'M'am, one small favour for me please...' quickly turns into staying up until 2am trying to get the last piece of papier mache to stick onto your 3D model of a solar and lunar eclipse. The struggle is this: I am not an art teacher. I used to switch over the channel whenever Art Attack came on ITV and settled happily for Spongebob Squarepants on Nikelodeon instead. I have to suppress a giggle when I proudly hand over a project that looks like it's been made with my feet to a hopeful teacher, who looks confused as to why the shiny new teacher from the UK can't seem to even write in a straight line.What's more, all the orders for the science projects were made on the same day with a limited time frame, so Elena and I have spent a lot of nights staying up late, crying into piles of pipe cleaners and PVA glue, munching our way through slightly melted chocolate and listening to Fleetwood Mac to survive.
But we are, at the end of the day, happy to do it. All of the projects we made were done with 3D materials so the kids can touch and feel them at the science exhibition, and the looks on the teachers faces and the many thank yous and the praises (for mostly Elena's work, not mine) make it all worth it. And as we stand in our sari's tomorrow, welcoming guests to the exhibition, I will fondly look over at the cardboard trees for a garden project that I spent many nights painstakingly putting together, and will simply have to laugh when it inevitably falls over.
It's not all doom and gloom here in India though - in fact, even during the rats and science drama, we've had many happy and funny moments, from giggling and laughing our way through Bollywood dancing with our 10th class boys, to going out for food with our LVP girls and getting to visit their awesome project and where they work, and in return showing them around Devnar the next day, to discovering an awesome noodle place just down the road, lots and lots and lots of cuddles with our favourite students, spending blissful mornings sat with my LKG class colouring in and, to top it all off, a really fantastic atmosphere at the school, as there have been lots of yummy food donations and functions this week.
Sorry for being so quiet on here - travelling and settling in caught up with me, but Devnar is now officially home, and I can safely say, even when a rat runs across my feet when I'm trying to go to the loo, that I am happy here. Even though WiFi is now limited here, I am determined to keep this blog regular with updates.
Until next time,
L x (and the rats)
