Never smelled sweeter.

It started out as a musty smell in the corner.

Every once and a while when I would fill up my cup at the water dispenser I caught a whiff and I would remark to Sarah and our guests how something wasn't right.

As the days passed, the smell spread further out and Sarah and I did a full scour of the right hand corner of our apartment, where the scent first originated. We ruled out smelly sneakers, expired foods on our pantry shelf, and any other random odour we came across from items that had been lost months earlier. We concluded that either our fridge was radiating out toxic gas or we had a decomposing rodent in our midst. Both options were less than thrilling.

It wasn't until Cheryl came over yesterday at lunch that we uncovered the truth. She noticed the smell and it wasn't long until she was peering into the electrical outlet above our shoe mat and identifying what once was a... tail.

LOVELY.

Somehow - this is just another one of those 'only in Haiti' moments - a mouse had climbed up our wall and for some unforeseen reason wedged itself into the wall where our electrical outlet was. Maybe it was trying to hide from bully mice (there's been reports of mouse wars happening in our kitchen cupboards after dark), or maybe it just wanted a cozy bed. Needless to say, it didn't last long there - we all figured it got zapped and that was the end of it.

Now the task was disposal. Fortunately, time was on our side as Broc was on his lunch break and I snapped him straight into action. Sarah was on backup with the headlamp (you can always count on her to step up). We retrieved a screwdriver and I braced myself for the smell impact with my finger on the trigger of the air freshener. After pulling out what was left of the mouse, Broc scraped some more remains off the wires and took the dustpan of pure reek out of the house.

Our baffled faces turned into rejoicing when the mouse made it's final exit!

Thanks to a brother who fixes doorknobs, refills water gallons and even has the stamina to take out decomposing mouse. I am a lucky sister!

Today's goodbye wasn't welcomed (let's face it, they never are), but I am thankful for the 2 weeks of memories filled with waterfalls, sing-offs, mountain summits, and crazy Haitian mice.

This apartment has never smelled sweeter.