Rat Poop on My Pillow

This morning I awakened in my own bed for the first time in a month. A month doesn’t seem all that long, but it becomes long when you are in a place so very different than you are used to, like the African bush. I love the place and the people enough that I return over and over, but some things about being there are just plain hard. This time what seemed to bother me the most, don’t ask me why, was the rat poop on my pillow.No matter what I did, it was always there. I’d cover my pillow with other things. Brent would carefully shake out a sheet to cover our whole bed, pillow included, to make sure any carousing rats would not be running directly over my sheets and pillow. Brent didn’t care in the least if rats had their way with our things while we were gone. He’s a true African at heart, slipping as naturally into their world as the monitor lizard into his termite mound hole. But he wanted me to be happy, so he tried to control the rat poop on my pillow.Nothing worked. It was there every day. We set traps. I lamented fiercely. Finally I resigned myself to it. My visitor had been there. Who was I to make him feel unwelcome? He’d still be living there long after I’d packed my things and headed back to my silk sheets and clean pillows.This morning I awakened in my civilized splendor. Fresh linens, carpeted floors, windows that opened to the rich Oregon air, no roosters crowing. Disoriented, I wondered where I was. It was with great relief, but also a tinge of sadness, that I realized there was no rat poop on my pillow.