Panic room

There are a number of key experiences you apparently need to have before you can say you’ve really lived in Timor. It makes for a daunting bucket list. I’ve already ticked off getting trapped in a slow-moving microlet for 5 hours, embarrassing myself with bad Tetun, getting groped on the street (double tick for that one), getting delayed by a landslide… you know, the usual.

This week I ticked off a big one. And it was one I was hoping to skip altogether. It’s the rat experience.

My life, up to last week, has been blissfully rodent-free. Apart from the odd possum in the roof, my most significant encounter with a rodent was my slavish devotion to Disney (and Mickey Mouse) for most of my childhood. What can I say? I’ve been living a pretty sweet life.

All of that changed this week, when I was unknowingly trapped in a small room with a rat the size of a small cat for 5 hours.

I knew we had a rodent guest living in the roof. I’d been plotting its death at a leisurely pace – I’d even got instructions on how to make a homemade trap using an empty wine bottle and copious amounts of butter. Use your imagine for that one.

Things went from leisurely to all out freakish on Monday night when I went to bed with an inexplicably uneasy feeling only to be terrorised by strange sounds. At one point I was woken up by something running across the mattress just above my head. I knew I had a guest, but I thought it was a mouse. I don’t know why I thought it was a mouse. I now realise that was completely stupid. I was clearly in denial.

At about 5am when I’d tired of leaping up, crazed, clutching my torch and searching my room every 45 minutes, I moved into the lounge room to sleep. I was exhausted. Paranoia is tiring, people. I eventually drifted into an uneasy sleep. And what was I woken by? Not by the chiming of church bells or the smell of roasting coffee…

I was woken by a huge rat pawing at my lap. Presumably it had missed my company in the bedroom and wanted to snuggle. I don’t know. It was clear I had an insane, emotionally needy rodent on my hands.



Look at its beady red eyes, pining for affection.

I won’t describe the next hour or so but I will say I fought back the urge to cry and instead focused on getting the rat away from me and out to the kitchen, where it could cuddle up to any old inanimate object it felt like.

Eventually I got to work, jumpy and bleary eyed. My colleagues cheered me up with strong black coffee and buying not one, but five, packets of rat poison for me. They also validated my experience by reviewing the photographic evidence and agreeing that my nemesis was indeed a ‘laho bo’ot’ (big rat).

Everyone knows the best rat poison has holographic illustrations.

After setting out a generous serving of rat poison, and sleeping with a torch beside me for the last 2 nights, I came home yesterday to the sweet smell of rodent death. After a quick hunt, we found it. Needless to say, it was a happy moment.

Now, I look both ways before entering the kitchen and I keep thinking I can see a rat out of the corner of my eye. I hope one day to make a full recovery.

Just another Timor happy snap