Rainin´ Ants!

I´m all settled into my new house, but it seems the ants were quick to follow. I can´t quite blame them as it is certainly the only dry place around (if you don´t count the leaks in the roof) since it has been raining a steady 4 inches a day here. Oh the joys of the rainy season! But thankfully there is only a month more of really strong rain. Then summer will be coming! Then clothes can dry in just one day instead of three. Oh the luxury! But that of course means that my hair will probably dry in one day too, so I´ll have to go back to taking a shower every day. Shucks!

So I tried attacking the ants that have made quite a big nest on my front stoop. I boiled up some water, added my Dr. Bronner´s soap, and had at it with my machette as I poured the water into what was once their home. They started pouring instead out of the electrical outlet. What else could I do but boil up another pot of water and pour that into the outlet. Sorry Grandpa, but I don´t use that outlet anyhow, so I don´t care what it may have done to the wiring. hehe I also did the same to another big next just down from the first. (There are nests all around the foundation of my house, which actually leads me to believe that the whole house is sitting on a huge interconnected system of ant tunnels.) The next day, the nests were reformed like I hadn´t done a thing.

Ants are also crawling around my kitchen/dinning room/work table. (It´s still the only table I´ve got in the house.) I keep that thing spic and span, so what they are doing there I don´t know. My sponge is constantly covered in ants that I´ve killed, which is kinda gross, but hey. I know I´ve eated a couple too that have been crawling in cups before I realize it. I make sure all my dishes are food free and swimming in copious bubbles, but I guess there is still some smell the ants like. In fact, I saw them crawling over the cake of dishwashing soap in the sink outside. I don´t know. It´s a losing battle, so I figure I´ll just hold out until the rains pass and hope it gets better after that.

These suckers bit though!!! I don´t think there is such thing as a friendly ant in a tropical country. Every one I´ve ever encountered no matter the size or color bites like a mother. I end up with raised pus-filled bites every time. And they typically prefer my toes or underneath my watch.

You know when you get the tingles when you are sitting some times? I often do when I am sitting, reading in my hammock. Well, in the States, I wouldn´t think of it. Here, everytime I look at the location of the tingle, it´s always a bug. Be it an ant, mosquito, cricket, moth, you name it, it´s been crawling on me. At least moths and crickets don´t bite. Or sting... Every morning my ritual is knocking off the new growth on the window (decorative cement blocks) that the wasps make every day. You´d think they would get the point by now that they aren´t gonna be able to live there as long as I am here.

And so the fight continues...

Things are going well in site if you can count all the books I´ve been able to read these past few weeks. I´ve quite enjoyed myself actually. This past week in fact I knocked off two new books from my list and started a third. Thank god for electricity so I can read into the night, or during the midday storms that fill the sky with dark clouds and blow rain into the house if I don´t have my lovely, pink shower curtain-covered door closed.

To my defense, though I really don´t feel I need to defend myself... I have been working with one of the ladies to start a women´s craft group. There is interest... just no one shows up to the meetings. They blame it on the rain. I guess that gives me free reign to read until the rain stops! I have also started digging a test hole for fish tanks. You need clay to build them to keep the water in. Well, after digging through 16 inches of black volcanic soil crawling with great worms, I couldn´t help but think why they won´t just make organic compost. Instead we made it down the first 36 inches and stopped for the day. That was two days ago... perhaps next week it won´t be raining so much and she (as I´m only digging this with one other lady) will be up for digging some more.

I haven´t done much to coordinate a Panama Verde group in my site yet. I´ve had a lot on my plate, you know between the books and all. I would have to hold meetings after 2pm when the kids get back from school (the colegio cause the elementary school rarely holds class past 10:30am). And of course that is prime time for rain and nonattendance at meetings. Oye.

My Eco-English class is still going well though. Last class I did the Ïncredible Journey¨ from Project WET and it went really well. Basically all the kids become water molecules to learn more about the water cycle. Plus, now that I spent the time to make all the game parts, I can use it again in the future with other groups.

So I´ll be plugging away at much of the same and hopefully getting into a better blogging rhythm again!