Ants In My Pants

Literally! Today was a perfect day except for one mishap. Let me tell you the good first. I started the day by going to the open air market with our accounts clerk, Naftali, who has been amazingly helpful. We went to several vendors whose seeds were infested or diseased, and even one vendor who was asleep! We finally came across a very nice lady whose seeds were healthy. We bought 4kg of cow peas, 15 ‘caps’ of sutza, and 15 ‘caps’ of saga. The prices were slightly lower than budgeted, which is always a sweet surprise.
I went straight to the garden with our grounds man and another Daisy helper, to learn how to plant. They said I was a “mwanafunzi mzuri”, a good student. I don’t think they expected me to be out there helping them. They warned me about the smell of the manure, but I just dug my hands right in and got to planting. It was a lot of fun and I was happy to help. One unpleasant thing about it, lunch was directly after I finished planting. Remember, we eat with our hands here…the same hands that were just covered in manure. Yuck! Made me feel like a real farmer.
Later in the day, our RODI friend Christine came by with our sweet potatoes, kolanuts, and sweet onions. We quickly gathered some students to go down to the shamba. They were taught how to cut and plant each type of veggie. The boys did the digging and the girls got to planting. They were having a lot of fun as I went around taking their photos. We were all laughing until I started feeling bites all over my feet.
One students yelled out, “look out, Safari Ants!”. I looked down and noticed my shoes covered in ants. The burning sensation I was feeling started to slowly travel up my pants. Ants in my pants!!! Everyone was quick to help, patting me down, grabbing my shoes, brushing the ants off of me. I was escorted by four lovely girls to the dorms to shake out my pants. I had at least three ants burrowed in my feet. Boy, did they sting! As I came out of the dorm the girls proceeded to tell me that these ants will make me swell and you can die from their bites. I was just an insy-wensy bit worried…then they started to laugh. As I went back to the shamba, the boys started imitating me, screaming “ahh, get them off!” as they danced around, supposedly as I did! I am sure it will take a while to live that one down. I spent the remainder of the time a ways away from the students finishing up. They were having a grand ‘ole time laughing at my hesitation to go back down. Can’t wait for Monday! Really!I am off to the Kakamega Rainforest this weekend. I have left a list of things to be done while I am gone and I have faith they will be accomplished well. More to come next week.

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