Mouse in the House!!

We had been seeing telltale signs of mouse activity for several days – a half–eaten chocolate, still in what remained of its wrapper, hastily discarded behind the microwave at the sound of footsteps approaching, a discreet slit at the seam of the bread bag that was absent-mindedly left out the night before, and then some of the bread crust nibbled away, and I knew we were in the presence of a mouse. Only, where was he hiding, and how would we catch him? Fred had talked about a mouse trap, and I agreed that was probably the best course of action, but I had not yet gotten around to buying one. It didn’t really bother me to have a mouse in the house, as long as it was discreet. Well, the answer came to me much sooner than anticipated. One morning, as I was rummaging in the pantry, I saw a flash of grey, and knew in an instant what it was. Before I could think better of it, I had let out a blood-curdling scream. Helena came running to the scene, asking what had happened, and when I told her, she too, was instantly on her guard. I poked at some bags and cans on the pantry shelf, hoping to catch another glimpse of the creature, so I could scream again, and then Helena screamed saying he was behind me, and had disappeared behind the fridge. Since the fridge is on wheels, I moved it out, but there was no sign of the mouse. So, I caught the cat and put him in the pantry and closed the door and hoped he would “take care of things”. After all, Bugsy had all but exterminated the mice around our house and the houses on either side of ours in Holland. But he only meowed and seemed completely uninterested. Before long, our housekeeper arrived, and when I told her what had happened she laughed and said:

- “All barangs are afraid of mice!”
- “And you’re not?”, I asked, naively.
- “No, where I live, there are so many mice, I’m not scared.”

She soon had recruited the driver and the guard, and all went into the pantry and closed the door behind them. They soon decided that the mouse probably had made a nest in the fridge, and asked me for a screwdriver so that they could remove the back of the fridge. Then they called me to show me the little critter's home. I soon overcame my fear, for my curiosity got the better of me, and I entered the room. They shone a flashlight on something which, to me, looked like little more than a collection of insulation, leaves and onion peel, but on closer scrutiny, there were pieces of wrapper and plastic, and all sorts of other things. Most of these items seemed to come from our garage in Holland, where the fridge had been standing when we lived there. They very calmly pulled the nest out, looked at the leaves, and said “These don’t come from a Cambodian tree”. Then they poked around inside the fridge, until the little bugger ran out and across the pantry floor. Again, I screamed, and Helena chimed in. They cornered the fellow behind the pantry shelf, there was a brief struggle, and then they all laughed as the guard emerged holding the mouse squarely between his thumb and index finger. They looked at the mouse and the mouse looked at them. I asked how he possibly could have gotten in, and they said, to my surprise, that they’d asked him, but he clearly didn’t understand Khmer; maybe he had come with us from Holland. I replied that’s impossible, but they insisted, saying that Cambodian mice are not so beautiful. And he is, indeed, a cute little fellow. Besides, we knew we had had mouse activity in our garage prior to our move, but we didn’t expect we’d be taking the little guy with us. How he survived three months wrapped up in a fridge in a container is a mystery, but he looks healthy enough. We decided to hang on to him for a while; since we already have a dog and a cat, it seemed almost fitting that the next addition to the menagerie should be a mouse. We named him Dutchie, in honor of his origins. The guard was given the nickname "Tchma"; Khmer for cat.

Halloween in Phnom Penh

On what was designated All Hallow’s Eve here in this outpost, we all donned our finest attires and called our favorite tuk tuk driver to take us out trick or treating. Since this is not a typically Asian tradition, you cannot simply go knock on any old door and expect people to be ready, hand outstretched, with a basket or cauldron of goodies. Instead, here, people with enough foresight (read: not I) had signed up on a list to host a Halloween house. They had decorated (or not, all depending on how into Halloween they are) their houses, and kids could stop by to pick up their treats. Now, how to know where to go? They had devised a brilliant plan; the main organizer had drawn up a map of the neighborhood, with all the addresses on the back. All we had to do was meet at their house to pick up the map, which we - after looking at it and realizing we couldn’t make sense of it – promptly handed over to our tuk tuk driver, and off we sped, into the fading sunset, to hunt for treats. It’s a funny thing, twilight; it makes people think their eyes are fooling them, which makes it easy to have some fun. With my face painted green, people would look distractedly in direction of our tuk tuk as we drove by, and then they’d hesitate for a moment, thinking they were seeing things, and then – to my kids great despair - I would grin a wicked grin and start cackling. The reaction was amazing! People would laugh, jump into the air and scream. When they tried to overtake our tuk tuk, I’d lean out ever so slightly, or even just stretch out my arm, and when they looked at me, they ‘d be so startled - but they would all inevitably start laughing heartily - it was probably one of the most surreal experiences I had ever had, but I’ve never had so much fun on Halloween night.