My Wildlife

There is a great deal of spectacular wildlife in Chile. There is a bird that is all around, even in the city, that is just gorgeous. As is typical in every Latin American country there is also an abundance of stray dogs. I heard that it was due to the lack of rabies in dogs and therefore there is a lack of motivation on behalf of the government to control the population. In my own life and experience, I get to have a very close interaction and relationship with two of God’s creatures in particular: rats and fleas. Every night we all snuggle down together for a night of not so sound sleep. The rats have been living in my walls since I got here so we are well acquainted, but the fleas are the newcomers. They’ve only been around for a couple weeks. Allow me to elaborate. I’ll begin with the rats.

The city of Temuco, and probably the rest of Latin America, has a severe rat infestation. If anyone ever tells me that rats should be put on the endangered species list I will have to laugh and promptly smack them in the face. The rats live in the sewers and everyone is in a constant battle to keep them from coming up and infiltrating the rest of the world. For this reason, the wealthier neighborhoods have trash pick up every day. When there is no trash for them to smell or get at, they stay put; at least that’s the theory. As I mentioned, I have had rats living in my walls for who knows how long, but I have been living with them for the past 6 weeks. My Aunt put "call the exterminator" on her To Do list, but was prompted to move it up when a rat wandered out into the yard this past Friday. Now, the only reason a rat would wander into the middle of a yard in broad daylight would be to die. Evidently, when a rat has been poisoned they will come out of their hole and die outside. Well, this rat was evidently not doing well. He would sit still in the yard until we were convinced he was dead, then jump up and wander drunkenly around the yard till he found another good place to sit for a while. This routine lasted all day. None of us could figure out why, since he had obviously been poisoned, it wouldn’t just die. We watched all day until it finally made it’s way back around to it’s hole, which just happens to be under my room, and crawled in. The exterminator finally came and was as handy as eating ice cream with chopsticks. We finally called the neighborhood caretaker and he said that when the same type of poison is used year after year, the rats get accustomed to it and instead of dying they just go absolutely bonkers. He said the crazy one had wandered into his yard, where it was "taken care of", but he had some friends around. Now we have to change our poison, but in the meantime he gave me an ultrasonic speaker that is supposed to drive them out. Well, it’s been a few days and it still sounds like they’re doing a midnight square dance, but they’re not happy. Don’t ask me how I know, but I can tell they’re angry. Till we find something that works I just have to keep banging on the walls to get them to shut up and let me go to sleep.

This brings me to the fleas. Now, I do not have fleas. I am quite hygienic thank you very much, but hygiene in the country and with the people we visit in the country leaves something to be desired. Sometime during our last visit to the country I brought some fleas back with me, which quickly settled into my bed, and I now have at least twenty lovely little flea bites. We just sprayed my bed this afternoon so we’ll see how that goes.