CANDID TALK: Here comes a new kitten – the Pied Piper of Hamlin

The legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is about a man who was hired to lure away the rats with his sweet pipe music to their demise. They all, except one drowned in Weser River in the lower German Saxon. If your primary school teacher was so daft not to read the story for you, forgive me for not telling the whole of it – the space is limited.

You are however free to seek for your primary school teacher (if he/she is still living) for further storytelling session. Anyway, the rats were so huge that they become such a menace - they had cats for lunch and dogs for supper (a little exaggeration).

For sometimes now, my one-and-only woman Bisho Ntongo and I would have loved to hire the services of a man of his ilk to lure away the resident rats to some sewerage somewhere in this rat and roach infested Uswaz. This is because rats have become such a threat to everything in our two-roomed shack that they gnaw everything including books, handbags, shoes, school and college certificates as well as plastics and metals.

Pied Piper of Uswaz would come in handy because Uswaz rats have become an eyesore that I can almost tell pregnant, lazy or a happy one. As we partake of our meals, mixed aromas of food attract the brutes from their nooks and crannies. They come out, wink and smile at us as if to remind us of their unwelcome existence and then fade back to their nooks only to raise hell.

Recently, it rained dogs and cats and fortunately a kitten that could have fallen off the sky came knocking at the door. This was a relief since for once, we had something that could at least scare off the rats. The only real problem is that Bisho Ntongo still thinks that there is something satanic about the creature (cats are associated with witchcraft). My daughter on the other hand thinks that cat is a god-given substitute for dolls. Witchcraft or no witchcraft, I have ordered that the cat stays.

The poor thing looks is so scrawny that I am not sure whether the rats won’t shred it into pieces and convert it into their dinner. For one, the kitten is smaller than the average resident rat with its ribs sticking out – very, very frail indeed.

I am however happy that whenever the kitten makes those mournful mews, rats scamper except for a few who have made our ceiling their permanent abode. In the meantime, I am hoping she will be strong enough to climb the walls to the ceiling. Her only problem is that she is convinced peeing on my bed is a good thing to do to Bisho Ntongo’s chagrin. In the meantime, she might end up serving the purpose of the Pied Piper