Ants

 Back at Kufunda, played some mbira for Fidelis, and Ticha and Mai Ti invited me over for sadza and mushrooms, since the power was out and I had no wood to cook with. Went to bed about 10 listening to rain on the thatch.... and dreampt of some folks, lying on some rocks, and one of them had ants slowly covering him. I half woke, still in the dream but aware that I was scratching, thinking I was just paranoid from the dream, but then actually squished 2-3 little somethings, so flicked on my headlamp and.... the bed was a mass of little ants. The sheet, the pillow, under the pillow, under the mattress, on me... I brushed them off, but they were all mixed up in the bedding and all over the bed. Was going to go sleep on the other bed (where I store my stuff) but it had ants wandering around it as well... and the floor was teeming. So, naked and headlamped, dodging mosquitoes, I started sweeping the bed, shaking out the sheets and blanket. Twice knocked my pillow down into the thickest area of ants on the floor, where it was instantly covered. Shaking them off the blanket meant they were landing on my travel-sticky body (no power = no pump = no water), getting caught in the mosquito netting... every time i stood still they would start crawling up my legs... (this has happened a few times meditating in the dining hut; I'd be 15 minutes or so in and feel my legs itching, think it was just my mind trying to avoid focussing, but eventually I'd open my eyes and see my calves swarming wth ants). Found some containers to put the bed legs in, put water in two of them and waited for the remaining ants to leave down the other two, with the ecouragement of the broom. Then watered the other 2 containers and dived into the (hopefully) ant-free haven of my bed to read for an hour, on high ant alert... only a couple stragglers showed up, so I felt my paranoia subside enough to sleep. In the morning they were all across the floor, in the peanut butter ,jam, honey, dishes... I swept them out 3-4 times, bu they just kept coming until I felt driven from my home. Claudia says they get bad like this in the rainy season, when they're looking for dry shelter. They've become my personal little demons... they don't really bite, they just saturate your existence until you feel like screamng.
(In other infestation news, there are bats in the office but you rarely see them - they just leave droppings everywhere.)