Twighlight Zone/ Nature Gone Wild

Vulture

Grasshopper

 

At about 5:30 this morning I entered: The Twighlight Zone. (Cue music) So today started off with a bang; with me waking up late.  Apparently using my cell phone for my alarm was a bad idea.  You see, since I have a prepaid phone there is no network and therefore I set the time myself.  Needless to say if I wanted to wake up at 4:00 this afternoon it would have been perfect.  Once I got to school I thought that everything would be fine.  I taught my sixth graders and later learned that there was a school assembly.  I thought oh well so I’ll miss one class.  Today’s assembly was about the National Parks.  Since today is National Park Day, we talked about how important it is to preserve nature: plants and animals.  The assembly went a bit longer than expected because one of the sixth graders fainted.  It was pretty scary.  She fell down in front of the whole school, including her two very young sisters.  Thanks to God she is okay. She was taken home to rest a bit, but being the great student that she is, she returned to take her exams. 

               

Due to the assembly and students taking exam in their other subjects, I ended up not teaching any other classes.  Although it wasn’t the school day I had quite planned it worked out because I used the time to grade projects.  My sister and I walked home and that’s when nature went wild.  We arrived to find a cricket sitting in front of the door.  It didn’t really faze me.  I just gently moved him out of the way with my foot and entered the house.  My sister who followed behind noticed that my head nearly touched a locust that was sitting on the wall, yuck!  After a few uneventful hours in the house my mom came home.  Since she was tired she went to lie down.  A little while later I heard my sister yell “Mommy come look.”  She is kind of like the boy who cried wolf so naturally neither her or my mother went to see.  Her mother only asked what it was, and she replied she couldn’t really explain it, so we just forgot about it.  It wasn’t until I went outside to wash clothes that I understood why.  It really was incredible.  The grass between our house and my Aunt’s was covered in ants.  No exaggeration there had to be about a thousand.  They crawled up trees and rocks and everything in between.  After so many of my run-ins with the ants naturally I was scared, as was my sister.  She ran to get a bucket of water, but after throwing it we saw even more, so we both took off running and screaming. 

When I ran back to the house screaming my mother asked me what it was and I told her more ants than I’ve ever seen in my life.  I asked her quite frantically, “what do we do?”  She replied, “Nothing.”  I figured that she didn’t understand the question so I repeated; “what do we do?” She then, a little to “tranquila,” I might add, responded, “Oh they come in the house once a year and eat all the insects and food that’s around.  They stay for about an hour, and then they move on.  They don’t do anything.”   Realizing I was on my own, I had to figure out a way to combat all the ants and save the house.  I ran in the room and found the only weapon I knew of that would ward off those monsters; baby powder.  I came back outside and they were already crawling their way to the house.  I start sprinkling the baby powder like a line of defense.  Like I expected they would not cross it.  My sister and I worked as a team.  She told me where and I sprinkled, well really poured the powder.  It wasn’t until a few rogue ants decided to be brave and cross the line, that I had to bring out the reinforcements; the broom.  I just swept them off the ledge.  I fought a good fight, however there were just too many of them and they found other ways to enter.  The last room in the house is under construction for next year’s volunteer.  Well apparently the ants didn’t get the message that this room was for the World Teach volunteers, because that is where they set up camp.  My sister and I watched in horror as they crawled throughout the room.

I guess my mother got tired of hearing her screaming daughters and probably figured that she wouldn’t get any rest until she created a solution, so she got up and came to help.  She didn’t look too pleased to see the floor covered in powder, but desperate times called for desperate measures.  She then grabbed her spray bottle of poison and went around the outside of the house spraying the poison.  It was if the ants were laughing at her as they continued to make their way through the house.  After spraying until she eventually got dizzy from the fumes she sat down on a rock.  While we were outside my sister pointed out that there were about eight vultures flying overhead.  I said, “Oh my God, nature has gone crazy.”  My sister responded with, “well they heard today was National Park day so they all came out to say hello;” you got to love her.   There was even a little lizard outside looking at the ants.  I don’t even think he wanted to take his chances, which was good because I’m not so sure he would’ve made it.  Eventually after conceding I just watched them.  They covered the outside walkway to the house and the wall outside the door.   

I finally got bored and went inside for Coffee hour (well tea for me).  About a half hour later my sister shouted that they were all visiting my Aunt’s house.  I said to my mom good thing nobody is home, because I was worried about my two year old cousin.  She agreed and said that she was would’ve been worried about Anderson (my cousin).  I said, “oh really and why is that,” ready to catch her since she said the ants didn’t bite.   She replied, “Because Andy would’ve tried to eat them.”  So there you have it, apparently the best solution to our ant problem lived next door the whole time.  

Today was definitely a strange day; a little too much out of the normal for me.  Luckily I lived to tell the tale.