The series ‘Rats’, first broadcast on the BBC World Service in June 2005, investigates the relationship between humans and rats in the United States and in Africa. It was conceived and produced by Kaz Janowski of the BBC and Dr. Monica Janowski, radio
in development coordinator at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, in collaboration with the National Institute of Health, Mozambique, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania, the University of Antwerp, Belgium and the Danish Pest Infestation Laboratory. The series presenter was Mark Lewis.

Rats are no respecters of the dichotomies of wealth and status. They eat crops in fields and feast on slow food and fast food from plates and dustbins in city and countryside all over the world.

For some, they are a symbol of dirt and fear. They carry diseases ranging from
plague to typhus. On the other hand, they are being recruited nowadays to fight human problems. And rats are regarded as a tasty source of protein in some cultures.

In this series Mark Lewis takes us from plague-ridden villages to training camps for mine-seeking rats, from a kitchen in rural Mozambique to the New York subway, building up a portrait of the relationship between man and one of our oldest camp followers.

Programme 1: New York: rats and fear

New York, city of skyscrapers but also of hundreds of miles of sewers, has been
described as ‘Ratropolis’. We hear in this programme from New Yorkers who tell us how, for them, rats are symbols of something dirty and fearful – but are also able to tell them something about themselves as humans.

When they surface in an apartment, people panic… and call rat exterminators. Rat extermination is good business in New York – and rat exterminators like Jack Wiley cater to psychological as well as practical needs.

Some, like journalist Bob Sullivan, who spent a year of nights watching rats in an alley in downtown Manhattan, feel the need to face up to the fear of rats, and to look into their own psyche in the process. But for New Yorkers, the fear remains… symbolised by the link between rats and plague.

Jack Wiler, rat exterminator and poet, tells us how he sees the world ‘kind of inside out… we go in the back door… and what we see are walls covered in American cockroaches… like the wall’s shimmering… we see a dozen rats scurrying by…’

Programme 2: East Africa: rats as foe, friend and food

In East Africa, rats are a nuisance, eating crops and food. Most people are not aware that they also carry diseases like plague…even though the disease is endemic in some areas, like mountainous Lushoto in Tanzania, where community theatre groups are spreading the message about the link between the disease and rats– and explaining that plague is not spread through witchcraft...

We hear from young boys who hunt rats and their mothers who cook them in
northern Mozambique, where villagers don’t have much money to buy meat and where hunting is a strong tradition. Unfortunately, eating rats (and letting them eat your food) helps to spread diseases, including plague…

Rats bring good as well as bad… in Tanzania they are being taught to find mines and to identify people with TB. Their handlers and trainers have become very fond of their charges, and we hear how they are helping to eliminate the threat of mines in neighbouring Mozambique…

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