Monsieur Robert Loves Rats

Bob Walker

Little slips can have odd consequences!

It promised to be a long motorcycle ride to the village where I would be working that day. It was barely dawn when I finished my breakfast, but the rhythmic, earthen thump of a woman pounding cassava flour, punctuated by an occasional rooster call from the village on the hill above our house, signaled that others were also beginning their morning. I broke the still of the dawn, kicking over my motorcycle’s engine and accelerating past our bamboo gate into the fog.

Before coming to Zaire, I never knew how cold it got in the mornings of dry season. The chill air rushing past as I negotiated the rutted, red-clay roads made my hands stiff and uncomfortable. My wife and I occupied a double post, each working with our own fish farmers, but we had worked out a strategy where, every few months, we switched to see how our partner’s work was progressing. It was a beneficial way to critique and lend perspective to each other. Today, I would be visiting some of my wife’s farmers at the far end of our post, so I had made an early start on what promised to be a tiring day.

Relieved to arrive after a physical, forty-minute ride, I turned off the main road and was greeted by a cacophony of children. Having heard my motorcycle from a long way off, they had assembled in typical large numbers. They scrambled to keep up, running perilously close alongside, laughing with excitement as I attempted to maintain control in the deep, soft sand of the village’s central thoroughfare. Finally stopping at one of our farmer’s houses, I stepped off with a wall of smiling kids’ faces tightly crowded around me. Adults pressed through the throng to greet me while a wizened village elder swatted at children with a short stick, attempting to clear space for me to move.

“Niama!” the thin old man scolded, referring to the children as insects. He clucked through his teeth in disgust, ineffectually swinging his stick as the kids laughed and playfully dodged. When the other adults joined the effort to disperse them, they gradually moved away to a respectful distance. A circle of local neighbors, the village elder, and fish farmers replaced the children; all had out-stretched hands ready to shake. Many gripped their right forearm with their left hand in emphasis of earnestness and respect intended by their greeting.

Shaking hands, I took care not to miss one, and to pay attention to the elder, acknowledging the respect owed him. Subsequently, a chair was produced and a glass of water, and I was encouraged to sit and drink. After an appropriate pause, I said, “We have much work to do at the ponds, and if the farmers will assemble, we should go immediately into the forest to visit their work.” I knew that there would be plenty of time in the village spent eating, drinking and socializing; I didn’t wish to lose the cool morning hours.

Hiking down from the village into the forested valley, we arrived pond-side. I began to review the list of daily tasks so important to successfully raising an abundance of large fish in the six months from stocking to harvest. Feeding the fish, cutting the grass, adding compost, keeping the overflow pipes clear—a farmer’s diligence to routine completion of these and other tasks was the key to a rewarding harvest. There is no better teacher than good example, so I worked along side the farmers. Grabbing a narrow bamboo pole lying near the bank, I inserted it into one of the overflow pipes at the top of the dike. Overflow pipes allowed rainfall accumulation to harmlessly exit the pond, maintaining an appropriate level. A blocked pipe would allow floodwater to pass over the top of the dike, eroding it and potentially blowing out the pond.

Immediately there was a cry of “MPUKU!” as farmers scrambled, machetes in hand, eager to dispatch the family of rats that emerged from the pipe. A young nephew was ordered into the forest to collect large leaves, and the freshly killed rodents were bound in neat, green little packages for easy transport back to the village.

That was when I made the faux pas I would regret for the rest of my service.

Thinking of my cat and how much she would appreciate a nice rat-meal, I thought to ask if I could take some home. “Could I have those to take home for my…” I started to ask.

Well, the truth was that I wasn’t thinking, because otherwise I would have realized that this prized catch was valued protein destined make a welcomed meal for the farmer’s family. And here I was, stupidly asking to take some home to my cat! Thankfully, I realize my mistake mid-sentence. But how would I explain that I had changed my mind?

It turned out that I wouldn’t have a chance to explain. The farmers seized onto the idea that I must absolutely love rats. “Oh, Monsieur Robert loves rats! We are going to bring these up to the village and eat them together because you love them so much!”

There was no escaping what had now become a social obligation, so I made the best show I could of graciously enjoying my rat-meal.

As I was saying goodbye to return to my house that afternoon, a tight, leaf-green rat-package was pressed into my hand to “take home to my wife to enjoy.” Every time in the months to come that I visited this village, I knew in advance that I would be served a proper rat-meal. After all, everyone knew how much, “Monsieur Robert loves rats.”

Bob Walker and his wife Tina served as Peace Corps fisheries agents in Zaire from 1987–89. Living and working in a remote village, they spent the first two amazing years of their marriage without telephone, electricity or running water, but lacking nothing of importance. Today they are raising two kids in the Washington, D.C. area.