Rough Night
The weather is changing here. The cold season is winding down and it feels like spring - a little warmer in the mornings and evenings. The sun feels hotter and there's even a tiny bit of humidity which is so nice when you're feeling so dried out after 4 months of cool dry nights and warm dry days. We still have another 2 and half months until it rains and the weather's just gonna get hotter and hotter. What's strange though is that the mpashi never really went away this year - I thought these army ants were rainy season only but the ones at Ciyanjano have not gone away and are still causing a lot of trouble. Here's what happened last night. First of all I've got to say that I've had a bit of a cold thanks to the children and spent almost all day in bed. I've also been having some suspicious pains in my pelvis, hernia, bladder infection, I wasn't sure but I was avoiding the possibility that my kidney stones were back...
So we went to sleep a little after 9pm (also known as missionary midnight) but I never fell asleep. I was miserable from my cold and feeling some serious pressure and pain from my pelvic region. I'll spare you the details but it became clear around 11pm that I passed a kidney stone. Feeling a deep relief I took a handful of ibuprofen and climbed back into bed and fell asleep. Until about 12:30 or so when the fence alarm went off. I got up and looked around, didn't see anything and went to get a flashlight and big stick. I could hear the fence cracking over by the chigayo gate and so went over to check it out. Sure enough there were a million mpashi attacking the electric fence with all their might, dying in the hundreds to attack their enemy. There were so many that they sent the alarm off. I went to wake up our fellow Ciyanjano missionary Tyler to have him bring a can of bug spray. He was still awake and we quickly sprayed the fence and whacked the dead ones off and the fence was fine again. When I got back in my house I started feeling a bit itchy and thought maybe I had an ant or two in my trousers. Turns out there were LOTS and they were biting like crazy by the time I started striping off my clothes. They had even got up into my shirt and on my arms. I thought I had been standing far enough away but they were really everywhere and all the foot stomping can't keep 'em off. Finally in a new set of PJs I climbed back in bed and laid wide awake for an hour or so. I think I'll spend the day in bed...
So we went to sleep a little after 9pm (also known as missionary midnight) but I never fell asleep. I was miserable from my cold and feeling some serious pressure and pain from my pelvic region. I'll spare you the details but it became clear around 11pm that I passed a kidney stone. Feeling a deep relief I took a handful of ibuprofen and climbed back into bed and fell asleep. Until about 12:30 or so when the fence alarm went off. I got up and looked around, didn't see anything and went to get a flashlight and big stick. I could hear the fence cracking over by the chigayo gate and so went over to check it out. Sure enough there were a million mpashi attacking the electric fence with all their might, dying in the hundreds to attack their enemy. There were so many that they sent the alarm off. I went to wake up our fellow Ciyanjano missionary Tyler to have him bring a can of bug spray. He was still awake and we quickly sprayed the fence and whacked the dead ones off and the fence was fine again. When I got back in my house I started feeling a bit itchy and thought maybe I had an ant or two in my trousers. Turns out there were LOTS and they were biting like crazy by the time I started striping off my clothes. They had even got up into my shirt and on my arms. I thought I had been standing far enough away but they were really everywhere and all the foot stomping can't keep 'em off. Finally in a new set of PJs I climbed back in bed and laid wide awake for an hour or so. I think I'll spend the day in bed...
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