Upon
arriving in Zambia any newcomer can’t help but notice the hundreds of giant
termite and ant hills that scatter the fields.
You literally have to drive through 8 foot high termite mounds that have
been plowed in half to create the road to Jembo mission. Instead of “Welcome to Zambia” signs should
say, “Welcome to ant-land!”
I am
regularly reminded of National Geographic videos that show
footage of lines of thousands of ants carrying corpses of other bugs or leaves
that are “a hundred times their size.”
It is really quite fascinating to watch these little bugs at work… but I
prefer to watch them OUTSIDE my house. Here are some stories of the problems I have
had with ants and their respective solutions… enjoy!
Solution
#1- Ants don’t like sunlight.
During
the cooler season my house was mostly ant free.
Then they discovered Dusty’s food dish.
Apparently cat-food is very appetizing for ants, and every morning I would
wake up to find that her bowl was swarmed with little teeny sugar ants that had
a highway running from her bowl out under my door. I would get frustrated that I had to throw
away food (she didn’t want anything to do with the bugs either), but I quickly
learned a trick: ants don’t like sunlight.
Remember using magnifying glasses to burn up ants on the blacktop at
recess? (or was I the only sadistic child?)
Well one day I placed Dusty’s ant-filled dish in the direct sunlight, just
to get it out of the house, and when I came back a hot sunny hour later to find that
they had all fled from her dish! Food saved.
Ants gone. Problem solved.
Solution
#2- Ants don’t like water.
While I
had discovered a solution for getting the ants out of Dusty’s dish, I still
needed a way to stop them from getting into her dish. Cindy, from past experience, taught me a
trick. Dusty’s food dish now sits inside
of a bigger bowl. The bigger bowl is
full of water. So now the little ants
have to cross a mote (it needs little mini crocodiles… or mini swimming
ant-eaters) to get to the food. Most of
them don’t make it across, and if they do the first time, they still have to
cross back. Every once in a while I have
to empty the bowl of dead, drowned ants.
Problem
#745- Ants DO like water.
Not
only do the ants like Dusty’s food, they also found her water dish an excellent
source of water during the dry season. It
really was quite interesting to watch them line up like elephants at the
watering hole… my own little African safari right in my kitchen!!
Solution
#3 Ants don’t like fire.
One
night I came home happy after a fun night at the Helvie Home Theater… Our
Friday night movie nights are exciting!
It usually involves homemade pop-corn, a foot washing and pedicure, and
a fun movie… I think American theaters need to step it up! Anyway, I came home happy, sleepy and ready
for bed. Headed straight for the
bathroom to… well do what you do in the bathroom… turned on the light to find
THOUSANDS of ants. All over the
floor. All over the toilet. All over the
sink. All over the shower curtain. And hundreds more pouring in through the
window screen.
I left
the bathroom, took a deep breath. Then,
out of urgency, decided to try to make my way to the toilet. But as soon as I entered the bathroom the
ants started moving faster out of distress. It was as if the entire room went
into Fast Forward motion and the walls, floor, everything was alive. They started crawling on my feet, up my legs…
biting the whole way.
I ran
out to my kitchen, grabbed my single can of DOOM (insect poison… the name is
appropriate) and sprayed a few small sprays. All it seemed to do was make them
more aggravated and active. At this
point I started hyperventilating, crying, screaming, and my nose started
gushing blood. I have never had a panic
attack happen so quickly.
Leaving
the bathroom, again, I noticed that they were starting to come into my
bedroom. My bed was crawling with them,
carpet and windows too. There was a
crack in the floor that they were coming out of as well as through the window
screens. This did NOT help the
panic!
Grab
phone, call Cindy with a plea for help.
Cindy rushes over, with a can of DOOM.
We empty two cans of DOOM in about 5 minutes… and we still found more
alive. However, the problem wasn’t what
was happening INSIDE my house… it was what was OUTSIDE. Cindy rushed to find
some Zambian men who quickly came with burning coals. It turns out that the ants were carpeting the
walls outside my house, so the men laid hot coals around the perimeter of my
house to prevent more from coming near.
Some more cans of DOOM were emptied outside and inside the house… and
after about an hour of a lot of excitement, my home had become an ant
graveyard.
The
rest of my night was spent sleeping on the couch, away from the DOOM fumes
which were venting out my bedroom windows with fans, with many dreams of
ants.
It turns
out that when an ant colony is searching for a new home, they will let nothing
get in their way. They thought my home would be a great place to make camp
since there was so much water in my bathroom… they thought wrong!
Problem
# 891- The Return of the Ant colony.
About
three weeks after this first traumatic event, just after I had recovered
mentally and emotionally and every last ant carcass was removed from my home…
they came back. I was lying down happily
to sleep when I started to feel something crawl on me. Not an unusual experience here in Africa, so
I ignored it. Then I felt it again. And
again. Switch on the light to find that
in the 10 minutes that I had been lying in bed my mosquito net, bed, and floor
have been covered in ants.
Brief
moment of panic… but this time I knew what to do. And I was prepared with 4 cans of DOOM. First I called Cindy, who instructed me to
call the students at the dorm. The men
were happy to come to my rescue and rushed over in their PJs eager to make sure
I was ok. After I sprayed a lot of DOOM
inside, we all analyzed the situation outside.
Finebeck
“We need fire.”
Me “Does
anyone have a fire made?”
Agruwell
“no, there is no fire…”
Kanseh “yes
we need fire, lets light it right here. What do we have to make it?”
Finebeck
“Let’s bring some gas and pour a line around the house then light it on fire.”
Me “I
think I would rather my house be infested with ants than be set on fire!”
Lots of
laughing…
The men’s
silly antics kept me sane, and we eventually emptied another 3 cans of DOOM
around the house and the ants stopped coming in. I had
the crack in my floor resealed with cement the next morning. Thankfully, the
colony seems to have moved elsewhere!
Solution
#4- Ants don’t like baby powder.
My
kitchen is precariously close to the front door, so despite my efforts to keep
things clean, if there are any loose crumbs or dirty dishes left out overnight
I will wake up to a stream of ants. One
day, Mrs Tilimboyi, one of the ladies who helps to clean my house, calmly said,
“Oh you just need baby powder!” Mrs
Munsanje offered to go buy me some from the little market in Jembo. Let me tell you, it works like a
miracle. Now the threshold to my doorway
is always covered with a line of baby powder.
I haven’t had ants in my house for weeks J
Benefit
#1- Ants clean up.
Now
that the rains have come a giant colony of big black army ants has emerged from
the ground right outside my house. Thankfully
my line of baby powder keeps them out.
However, at night, they have been preventing me from leaving my house. The security light outside my apartment
attracts all kinds of bugs, who of course die from hitting the light and fall
to the ground right outside my home.
This colony of army ants thinks it’s a great place to find food and
thousands of them come out at night to clean up the bug remains. I can’t go out
because there is no ant-less place to walk, and they bite. And for some reason I
don’t like getting bitten. I really don’t
mind that they are there, as long as they stay outside… and hey, that means
that in the morning there isn’t a single dead bug outside my home J
I could go on and write about the flying ants, the flying termites, termite mounds in general… but I think this has been enough of an ant saga for today. I am proud to say that my relationship with ants has become far less stressful. They are a very present fact of life here and we’re learning to cohabitate… separately… just fine J
I could go on and write about the flying ants, the flying termites, termite mounds in general… but I think this has been enough of an ant saga for today. I am proud to say that my relationship with ants has become far less stressful. They are a very present fact of life here and we’re learning to cohabitate… separately… just fine J
Tune in next time for Tales of Frankenbug....
