During my six years in Nicaragua I've grown accustomed to spiders, geckos, ants and even an occasional bird making their way into my classroom during any given day. This week started out like any other until Wednesday. As I opened up my classroom on Wednesday morning there was a terrible smell. I could tell immediately that something had died in my classroom. The smell of rotting something was potent. I immediately opened up the windows and turned up the fans in order to try and air things out. The maintenance guys came to see if they could locate what had died and remove it for me. As they were pulling out ceiling tiles the smell got worse. Picture all of my students with their shirts up over their noses making all kinds of terrible sounds as they tried not to breathe in the wretched smell. Richard and Jose Angel decided that it had to be a dead rat but that it was in a part of the roof that they could not access to remove the dead rat. In true Nica fashion they stuffed the hole full of newspapers and then sealed it with silicone. We all could breathe a little easier after that.
On Friday my students were playing with some insects during our carpet time. When I investigated I discovered wormlike things crawling around on the floor. Having the slight feeling that they just might be maggots I sent my kids right back to their desks. We called in the maintenance and cleaning staff again. There were maggots all underneath our classroom carpet and rapidly making their way around the classroom.
We cleaned, sprayed and sanitized and yet I was still finding them alive and crawling around the classroom on Saturday. Rosita and I have not been able to figure out exactly where they are coming from. Our suspiscions seem to lead us to the ceiling where the rat died last week. I think we are both fearful of just what we will find up there.
This just goes to show you that you never know what things you may encounter while teaching in a classroom in Nicaragua.
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