a month long battle, finally won.

There are a lot of things that we battle here and for the past month or so I have been battling Mickey Mouses evil, and quit large, twin.

I have been trying to catch this rat for a while and been extremely unsuccessful. At first, I would put out this trap with some cheese on it. I would come back in the morning and the cheese would be gone but the trap would not have even been set off. Then I tried to put some fried salami but that just got attacked by the ants and then the rat would want nothing to do with it.

For about three weeks after that I would lose some food article every night. It was usually a banana or a piece of yucca or a plantain. I would wake up and have to throw something out everyday.

I did not see him for the longest time but I knew his tendencies. One day I when I got home I finally spotted him. We stared each other down for a while, then he turned an ran out, which was fine with me because I was not armed.

I got some advice from some friends on how to set the trap so that the ants would not get the bait and so that I could finally reign victorious over the one who battles me daily for food.

Last Sunday as Tommy, Jill, and Casey left I got home and again met my little friend in the house. He ran pretty quickly but I saw where he ran to hide. I put on my shoes, got my weapon of choice, a steak knife, and a broom and made the decision to leave the job to experts. I went and got my friends Carlos and Overlín. They immediately came over, excited and prepared for battle, accompanied by their brothers, Oliver and Alexandro.

The enemy had set up camp in my hot water heater when Carlos went in to lure him out to persuade him to come out for some hand to hand combat. He got him out but the enemy fled quickly to another site, my stove. We tried to put a towel under the door in the kitchen so that he could not escape in the case that he got out of the stove alive. After a few minutes, he did escape and pushed the towel out of the door way and escaped.

The battle was won by the rat but we were ready for the next attack.

There were no major battle wounds, although Alexandro did take a hard fall in an attempt to keep the enemy at bay.

The next day, I got a trap and with the help of my far superior and more tactful soldier friends set it up ready for war.

I went into Rio San Juan and by the time I got back I had a fresh rat corpse on my hands. The trap did the trick and the battle was finally won.

God,

It was a long month but I am so thankful my rat friend is gone. I am so thankful to have friends to help me out with things like this. Yes, it was quite annoying to have to battle a rat for such a long time but thru it I did get closer to Carlos and Overlín, something that is invaluable and worth the 30 pieces of food that I lost. Thank you for them and help me to not let things like this get in the way of my life here. Help me to understand that this is life here and Satan is going to use whatever he can to trip me up. Give me the strength to keep fighting and keep looking to you.

I Love you every day.