Hi,
Last night I was sleeping up in the loft of a funky little guesthouse in the heart of downtown Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. The town is in an area of Central America that gets hurricanes, earthquakes, mudslides, and volcanic eruptions. The most active volcano in the western hemisphere is steaming away above the town. Well, it got a bit interesting last night.
I woke up at 4 am to what sounded like an avalanche of rubble rolling down the fiberglass sheet roofing only 2 meters above my bed. I saw shadows of huge rats in the moonlight, chasing each other and racing and scratching around the roof. I could see the shadows of at least 4 or 5 of the largest rats I've ever seem. They were at least 12 inches long and were extremely fast. I thought I was going to be attacked and eaten by a horde of huge rodents.
It turns out that there are hundreds of cats in this city….. cats, not rats. Thank god. I learned afterwards from Julia, my amazing Spanish teacher, that all the city's cats live on the roofs of the buildings. There are absolutely no cats who live on the ground. The wild, hungry dogs would get them, of course. The cats run around at night, making the most incredible noise – scratching across the clear fiberglass roofing. Thank god they were not rats. I was a little nervous.
Hmmm… 'Cats on a hot tin roof' ?
Not eaten by rats yet,
David
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