Coeds Abroad: Malti's tale

Let’s continue the tale of Malti the rat. As you may remember, that’s the name Andrea and Jennifer put on the rat that graciously offered some companionship at 3 a.m. the other night (actually Andrea growls that rats don’t deserve names). They originally named it Monty, but were persuaded to switch to the Indian spelling since it’s an Indian rat. Anyway, Malti first entered their lives via an unexpected entrance, especially unexpected was Jen’s scream, chasing the poor rat away (for a first-hand report, go to Andrea’s blog).

The addition of Malti to the cozy household was passed on to various people. This morning, the Fathers Vincent (Braganza and Saldanha) were with Andrea, Jen and me at the dining table when Father Braganza (pictured above) started to explain that he had arranged for a rat trap to be installed in their room. “You’re not going to kill it?” Andrea exclaimed. Oh, no, replied Father Braganza, it’ll be a cage trap with cheese. As he asked for details, it became obvious that once he had made sure the serious aspects were covered that he and Father Saldanha were beginning to enjoy the reactions from Marquette’s finest women. As one or the other scored a point (as evidenced by a reaction from one or, generally, both of them), they would exchange a finger bump just as American students would exchange a fist bump.

They moved on to discuss lizards – “What?” said Andrea, wide-eyed. And then Father Braganza talked about a visit he had with Rajastan's famous Karni Mata Temple, a temple dedicated and overrun with rats. Laughing he described how he walked barefoot among them with Malti’s cousins running across his feet.

I don’t know what I enjoyed more, the reaction from the students or watching the two priests having such fun with them. Finger-bumps all around.