Meet the Critters

“EEEK! A rat!!!” she squealed as she danced on her toes and held each side of her skirt in her fingertips while standing on a chair in the kitchen (it was almost that cartoonish). “Don’t just stand there, kill it!!” I yelled to her. “With what?” she said. “Grab a kitchen knife and start whackin’! You’re bound to hit a vital organ eventually…” I responded. The following disgusted look clearly indicated that I would have to be the one to take care of the rat that was living in our bathroom outside and scaling the electrical wire coming to the main house and into our kitchen. As I picked up my cane knife (a 2.5 foot long heavy machete commonly used to cut sugar cane in Fiji) and proceeded to head outside she asked, “What are you going to do with that ?!” My response was, “Hopefully, I’m going to cut that nasty little vermin into as many pieces as possible…or at least bludgeon it if I’m lucky.” (Cue the disgusted look once again) Unfortunately, the rat did not fall victim to my cane knife, as much as I would’ve enjoyed that prospect.

We had just received a visit…a rat scout if you will…scoping out the prospects of any uncontained food items that might be in the house. Fortunately, this would be the first and only rat we have experienced thus far in Fiji. It was also just one of the Polynesian black rats, which are much smaller and a lot less disgusting than the Norway rats most folks in the U.S. are familiar with. In either case, they are disgusting little disease vectors that deserve to be poisoned, trapped, sliced, squished, stomped, scorched, exploded, or otherwise made dead by any means convenient and close at hand.

Despite the presence of our little furry friend, we felt lucky that there was not a greater presence of rats. Other Peace Corps volunteers have had toes nibbled in the middle of the night, heavy plastic containers gnawed completely through to get at their last precious stores of chocolate inside, and underwear crotches completely eaten away. I could probably deal with rats chewing into my food containers. But I can say this with absolute certainty…if I am ever bitten by any rat while sleeping it will be the last thing that rat, or his family, will ever do. I will go completely “Soprano’s” on their little rat asses! In any event, this unfortunate home invasion was more than enough to prompt us to get the best rat eradication device known to man.

This is the face of a cold-blooded killer. He may look cute, but he may as well have been the angel of death when it came to bugs, lizards, and rodents. Unfortunately, this is actually our first kitten, Benjamin. Ben met an early demise in an event that would be yet another cultural learning lesson for us. About a week after we had received the kitten, I fashioned a collar and tag out of a piece of blue string and a small yellow plastic fishing float with our names written in Fijian. We placed the collar on the kitten, who almost immediately went missing that afternoon. Michelle told the Turaga ni Koro’s (the mayor) wife, Kula, the next morning that the cat was missing and she said she would ask around. About a half hour after Michelle told Kula about the cat, a young boy crossed the school grounds carrying a briefcase (not a common accessory item in a Fijian village) and stopped outside our field of view. Strangely, immediately after the boy crossed back into our field of view little Ben came bounding back into the house, sans collar.

So I fashioned a new collar out of 130# fishing wire that, short of wire cutters, was not coming off. The next evening, as we were meeting with the Turaga ni Koro, the kitten playfully bounded out into what would be his last sunset. About a half hour later a group of children showed up at the door saying in broken English “cat died” as one of them handed Michelle a wire collar with a yellow plastic tag that, short of death, could not have been removed from the kitten.

Needless to say, Michelle was very upset and demanded to know where the cat was and the children said it was in the neighboring village, which seemed suspicious given the kitten never strayed far from the house. The children went to retrieve the kitten and returned with a limp, lifeless, and wet body that was once little Benjamin. The best that we could surmise based on the disjointed stories from several children was that “something” bad happened to the kitten and “someone” tried to revive it in water. It wasn’t until later that we learned from one of the village girls that three of the young boys deliberately chased down the kitten for the express purpose of killing it…so they could get the little plastic yellow collar off of his neck. It turns out that the previous collar had become a rare and sought after item of status with another child and these other children wanted one just like it.

At this point we learned that, no matter how much evidence that you may have that Fijian children may have done something bad, they will not cop to it under any circumstance. This was confirmed by the story of another Peace Corps volunteer who had her Ipod stolen by the only child in her house at the time after she had walked into another room and returned to find the child, and her Ipod, gone. After going to the child’s house and confronting the child to no admission, she barged in and turned over the kid’s room…and found the Ipod under some clothing. Go figure, the child had no idea how the Ipod got there.

All we wanted was an honest admission and explanation of what and why regarding the kitten, but even after the Headmistress of the school sent the three boys to talk with us and I laid the best Biblical guilt trip that I could on them, they would not budge. And as much as I was looking forward to them working their debt (and their asses) off in my garden as compensation, we’ll never have the full picture of why three little boys would want to kill a cat that belongs to someone else for a little yellow piece of plastic.

As a consolation, the family that gave us Ben brought us our second cat, which happened to be from the same litter. Meet Loki, our resident pest prevention and removal service. Just like Ben, he is a killing machine. I’ve seen him take out nine June bugs and a six-inch long gecko in about a one-hour period. He’s always particularly proud when he kills something. He’ll kill it outside, come galloping inside to the middle of the room, and drop it on the floor before batting it around and polishing it off with a “crunch, crunch, crunch.” I think it might also be his way of showing us just what he’s capable of. In any event, he’s an ethical hunter, eating everything he kills. Michelle is completely disgusted by all of this…I couldn’t be more proud…

Last week, while I was at a grog session on the other side of the village, I got a panicked text from Michelle including the words gecko, kitten, and gross. Apparently, Loki had caught one of the big geckos. These guys are meaty, like a small sausage, probably weighing about a quarter of a pound. He was so proud of this conquest that it wasn’t enough to drop it in the middle of the room for all to see. No, he had to make sure that Michelle could see what he had done. So he didn’t just drop a bleeding, squirming, dying gecko in front of her, beside her, or otherwise near her…that simply was not good enough. For a prize like this, he needed something equivalent to neon signs and a sound truck. So Loki galloped up like a proud show horse and dropped the fat, squishy gecko right ON her bare feet as she sat in a chair reading. Now I wasn’t there to see exactly what happened after that, but my guess is that it will probably require therapy when we get back to the U.S. Despite the screaming and panic that I am sure ensued, Loki managed to eat the entire gecko before I returned, which was no small feat considering it was probably about a fifth of his body weight. I can’t wait until he does the same with a rat…

Unfortunately, Loki hasn’t really learned his limitations. He has, at times, let his attitude write checks his furry little body simply would not be able to cash. Like when he decided to growl and hiss at one of the friendly village dogs named “Snoopy” that came to our door. You could almost hear Snoopy, who outweighs Loki by at least 20 pounds, saying, “He’s kiddin,’ right?” And then there was the time Loki thought he would go after one of the chicks belonging to one of the dozen or so chickens that live around our house. No amount of attitude can prepare a kitten for the wrath of a mother hen. I saw him sitting at the doorway, eyeballing a group of small chicks with a fat white hen. As the hen and her brood passed out of my field of view, Loki launched from the step. What followed was a tumbling mass of fur and feathers punctuated by a loud “bawk-AWK!!,” subsequently followed by a little tabby with an newfound attitude adjustment launching back into the same door he leapt from seeking protection from a big, mean chicken. He looked a little like Bill the Cat from the old Bloom County comic strip as he cowered at my feet while breathing heavily and conveying a wide-eyed expression that said, “What the in the HELL was that?! That was, like, CHICKENZILLA!” To give him credit, the chicken did probably outweigh him, but nobody wants to admit they got their ass kicked by a chicken.

Speaking of chickens, this is Elvis. At least that’s what I call him. I call him Elvis because he’s a crooner…and he loooves the sound of his own voice. Elvis is also quite the ladies man, too. He owns our front yard and the schoolyard, never having fewer than three hens around him at any given time. Unfortunately, this strutter also has a poor sense of timing and doesn’t seem to see the difference between 3AM and 7AM when stretching his vocal abilities. All I can say is, “Thank GOD for earplugs!,” but sometimes even the earplugs just don’t cut it.

So Elvis and I have been in intense negotiations over the past few weeks in an attempt to establish a truce. It is an uneasy truce, like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and we often exchange fire without any major casualties. Nonetheless, the terms of our agreement are as follows: (1) Elvis refrains from crowing near the house before 7AM; and (2) as long as Elvis complies with the first term, I will refrain from killing and eating him. Pretty simple, really. Yet it’s been an uneasy truce that was almost broken about a week ago when Elvis decided to open up his pipes directly under our bed.

Following an ear piercing crow that I am convinced is designed to reach all the way into your cerebral cortex and trigger the “massive irritation and anger node,” I loaded my slingshot with a round piece of coral and stepped out the back steps and crouched down to view Elvis, still standing directly beneath our bed. Elvis had a look about him that said, “Hah! You don’t have the room to accurately throw a rock!”, indicating that he’d been through this drill before. He was mistaken. The coral left the slingshot and whizzed toward Elvis, or more specifically, Elvis’ backside. I like to imagine that Elvis received a coral suppository and judging by the puff of feathers and the yelp that came out of that obnoxious bird, that was entirely possible. Needless to say, Elvis keeps his distance these days.

We have other farm animals nearby as well. Michelle calls this guy “Wilbur”. He very well may be “some pig,” but I think he deserves a more suitable dignified name, like Sir Frankfurter Loin Bacon IV. It is a simple difference of perspective, really. When Michelle looks at him, she gets all googoo-eyed and sees the talking pig from “Babe.” When I look at him I think of grilled chops or a rack of ribs smothered in a dry rub and barbecue sauce. Michelle would really like to have her own piglet. However, when I remind Michelle of the inevitable fate of the “cute little piggy” and how it would be no different for our pig she insists that the eating of our pig would be forbidden and that “pigs make great pets.” I got a similar response to the idea of having our own chickens or goats. Yes folks, given the opportunity we would have Fiji’s first unofficial petting zoo.

One of the interesting things about Fiji is that the concept of “pets,” especially as family members, is completely foreign if not simply bizarre to most Fijians. Animals in Fiji essentially fall into one of two categories, tools or food. A cat is a rat removal tool. A pig is food. Sometimes, they may fall into both categories if they fall into the food category after running up their use in the tool category, but rarely, if ever, are animals kept without some purpose. This purpose almost never includes companionship, which is why most of the villagers are perplexed by the way that Michelle treats Loki. They especially don’t understand why she takes all the time to cook and package food expressly for the kitten, given that they think cats should be kept hungry to stay more motivated to eat rats.

That’s just the domestic animals, though. Fiji has loads of interesting wild animals that we are just beginning to discover. Take for example the matalade (matah-LAHNdeh), or “face jumping,” tarantula. About the size of a dinner plate and possessing fangs about a half an inch long, the matalade tarantula is known for hiding in dark places like kitchen cabinets and clothes drawers where, when startled by a person seeking a coffee cup or a fresh pair of undies, they exhibit the curious habit of hissing loudly and launching directly at the face of the person who so uncourteously let in the light. While not deadly, the venom apparently causes one to lose control of all bodily functions and soil their underwear. Who wouldn’t crap their pants if the saw a giant spider leaping at your forehead like one of the facesuckers out of the movie “Alien”?

OK, so the matalade tarantula is a complete fabrication, but Fiji does have its share of dangerous or otherwise scary critters. There are two species of spiders that have a leg span of about three inches in diameter and will run AT you if given the opportunity. Poisonous or not, an eight-legged monstrosity bigger than a Vegas dollar coin running straight at you would be enough to give anyone the heebie jeebies. There is also a centipede that gets about 12-16 inches long that the villagers call “tolu vula” or “three months” because that is how long it takes to fully recover from the bite. The centipede is a shade of red that says “don’t touch” and the bite apparently causes swelling so severe that limbs sometimes require being lanced to prevent the surrounding skin from bursting on its own.

Garrett, the Peace Corps volunteer that we replaced, was so paranoid about the centipedes that it resulted in about the most embarrassing instance I can imagine. One day, while Garrett was performing his best rendition of Rodin’s “The Thinker” in the outdoor toilet, he felt something crawl between the bed of his sandal and his foot. It could’ve been a gecko, skink, or even a sand crab, but in Garrett’s mind it was unquestionably the tolu vula. In a moment of pure panic and reaction, Garrett flung his foot forward and screamed like a schoolgirl, nearly kicking the door of the toilet off its hinges. It was lunchtime and the parents in the village had gathered at the kindergarten to have lunch with their children. Did I mention that the door of the toilet opened directly toward the kindergarten?

As Garrett’s flip-flop sailed through the air toward the kindergarten, the parents tried to shield the eyes and ears of their children from the overexposed white man sitting on the porcelain throne screaming profanities. And there is simply no graceful way to recover from that. You just have to apologize profusely, cover yourself as best you can, lean forward, and slowly pull the door shut, closing you and your shame behind a half inch piece of weathered wood.

There are also two species of poisonous snakes in Fiji, but neither are of consequence. One is a brown snake that spends most of its time buried in Fiji’s jungle soils. Most Fijians have never even actually seen the brown snake it is so reclusive. The other is the banded sea snake, which is deadly poisonous but is so docile that Fijians pick them up and toss them aside as if they were just a stick lying on the beach. Even if a sea snake were provoked enough to bite you, their gape is so small they would have to bite you between your fingers or toes. If one bites you there, you probably had it coming.

We’ve only seen a few of the other reptiles besides the geckos and skinks, but there are a few species of iguana that exist in various parts of Fiji that haven’t been invaded by any number of pests that people have introduced. Probably the worst of the pests, the mongoose ranks in the top of brilliant ecological mistakes, devouring native birds and reptiles as fast as it can shimmy its little weasel body through the underbrush.

As the story goes, the introduction of the mongoose throughout the South Pacific was a stroke of genius by a biologist who thought, “Gee these rats that were introduced seem to eat a lot of native birds and their eggs, we should find something to control the rats. I know, mongoose are vicious little creatures that eat rats in captivity! Let’s conduct a completely uncontrolled experiment and release a relentless and unstoppable predator throughout the Pacific Islands!”

Indeed, the mongoose is one of the nastiest snarling, spitting, growling weasels on the planet. Looking a little like a slender, tan and smaller version of a river otter, they are known for their remarkable ability to kill a king cobra (remember “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?”). What the errant biologist didn’t think about was that mongoose are diurnal predators and rats are nocturnal scavengers…and never the two shall meet. Rats continue to pillage the nests of the last remaining individuals of some bird species at night while the mongoose sleep soundly, and as the rats clock out as the sun rises, the mongoose take on the day shift doing the same. So the biologist simply compounded the problem of extinction on the islands by introducing yet another predator of native birds and reptiles…and an incredibly efficient one at that. The good news is that Fijians eat mongoose and, yes, according to them it apparently tastes just like chicken.

So these are some of the critters we’ve encountered or at least heard about since arriving in Fiji…at least on the terrestrial side. The sea and air deserve their own focus in later entries. In any event, the bipedal mammals have been the most interesting critters so far and are probably still more dangerous than any snake or face jumping spider.