Ñino Jalo

Last night I went out to the pit latrine area and just as I was about to enter I saw a strange creature coming out of the hole where the water drains away. It was dark and though I had a torch I still was unable to make out exactly what the creature was (also I wanted to maintain a 'safe' distance).

The creature was about 8 inches long and about 2 inches wide. It looked and moved like a rodent but it was jet black and didn't appear to have a tail. Initially I thought it might be a lizard but its movement was mouse-like. It ran around in the latrine area and then it went down the 'plug hole'. The creature was disturbing and watching it disappear down the plug was gross!!

I waited for a little while, head torch on - not wanting to get too close to the hole and then out it came again. It was like an extended mole. Freaky. I had noticed that there were sometimes strange animal faeces (like huge mouse poo) in the latrine area but I was hoping that they had just appeared by magic?!!

What should I do? I can’t evacuate the latrine area, it's where I wash, clean my teeth, and relieve myself! I wasn't going to let it win! So I did my business as fast as I could (keeping a close eye on the plug hole all the time) and then ran inside and bolted the door. I felt quite brave!!

This morning when I went out to the latrine area I cautiously peered round the wall before entering and then I positioned myself in a 'quick getaway' position and poured water down the plug hole - nothing happened. I poured a little more - nothing happened. I then did my business and a short while later I had a bucket shower.

At work this morning I felt compelled to tell one of my colleagues about my strange latrine creature. I describe it just as I have above and when I had finished he said, 'you have a ñino jalo'.

Ñino jalo? What on earth was that? Well apparently it is Mandinka for a type of mouse. It is black, long and thin and has a very short tail. For the Mandinka people it is seen as the worst type of mouse because it is known to bite people! According to my colleague, it has a long mouth and very sharp teeth and can bite through anything. It's name comes from a translation of 'singing mouse' and it's known for making a loud noise that is very disturbing (fortunately this mouse lives outside my house and there is such a variety of random noises going on throughout the night that I haven’t singled out this particular mouse noise!)

Anyway, my colleague told me that 'ñino jalo' was 'bad, very bad indeed' and it needs to be killed. I am in agreement with him. A human-biting, night time screaming rat-like mouse in my plug hole? Yuk. It's got to go!

My colleague suggested pouring boiling water down the hole, 'keep doing it again and again and it will burn its skin'!!!!?? To me that sounds more like a 'final stage’; don’t really want a skinless rodent running around in the middle of the night looking like a victim from a nuclear assault. No, I think stage one will have to be a rat trap in the latrine area (a mouse trap would be too small to catch this thing but big sister Lucy must have anticipated that such troubles lay ahead for me as she recently sent me a package containing equipment for a war against mice which included two rat traps).

I will put the trap out this evening and allow 48 hours (that’s what it suggests on the box). If this is unsuccessful I will move to stage two (I’m not sure what this would be yet but I know that it will not involve boiling water - that would be stage 3!)

I will keep you posted (hopefully with a picture of a dead ñino jalo)!!