Ant Dance.

Tonight, when we reached home after supper, the electricity was still off, so our compound was quite dark. Not a huge problem: Sister shown the headlights for me to open the gates to the garage, then I used my torch (flashlight) to lock them.

Seeing that I had to enter the house from outside anyway, I decided to first head around back and pick my clothes from the line in the garden. I did laundry late this afternoon: bedsheets, handkerchiefs, citengi (the cloth that serves for towel, apron, picnic blanket, and a host of other purposes), a few shirts, and one especially mud-stained skirt. We sometimes leave clothes on the line at night, but theft seems more common when the electricity is off, so I decided it would be better to bring my things in. Besides, I figured they'd be dry by now.

When I shone my torch on the line, I was a bit surprised that the girls had not brought in the things they had washed earlier in the day. The habits and bedsheets for the house were dry before I even hung my clothes up, but I supposed they must have just decided to pick them in the morning. I had hardly unpinned two handkerchiefs of mine before I felt something crawling on my legs. Crawling, then, so quickly, biting my ankles, my calves, the back of my knee.

I ran toward the house, swatting at my legs, and making surprised sounds, “Oh! Eh!”

Someone called out, “what is it?”

“Sister, I don't know. I was picking my clothes from the line, but something is biting me now.” The bites continued, sharp little pricks pilgrimaging up and down my legs.

“Red ants,” they informed me, “you enter here and remove your trousers, or they will keep biting you.”

Dancing into the house, in the darkness of a powerless night and glad that the watchman was far out of sight, I pulled off my jeans and examined my legs to make sure no insects remained. Tying a citengi around my waist, I agreed to Sister's suggestion that I leave my trousers there until morning: I have absolutely no desire to infest my room with biting ants!

Reaching my room, I again checked myself for ants, then removed the slug which was hanging out in my toilet and took a cold shower. Some of the bites continue to itch, the worst being the ones clustered around the braided cord I wear tied on my right ankle: for the first time in months, I have removed it, at least until the welts go down. Mostly, though, I seem to have escaped without any serious damage.

I know now, of course, why the girls left the clothes on the line earlier: in the light, they could see that the area had been taken over by ants, and they weren't too interested in doing the “ant dance” themselves.