The Ants Go Marching

It is lunchtime, and my water glass has run dry. I stroll into my ‘kitchen’ for a refill. There, I am met by hundreds of ants. These are not the itsy-bitsy sugar-seeking critters that are known to ruin picnics. No, these are monster omnivorous ants that make a machete-wielding scorpion executioner (yours truly) shriek in panic. The floor, walls, and roof are crawling with a blanket of six-legged trespassers. I notice my ñame, a delicious tuberous vegetable, under siege and attempt a rescue, tip-toeing my way through the trenches. As my hand closes around the prized ñame, a burning sensation explodes from my fingers to wrist. The little monsters bite! I fling my prized veggie out the window and drown my blazing hand in my glass of water.

Cuko the fearless fuzz ball cowards under my bed. I send out a frantic text message to fellow Peace Corps Volunteers: ‘Hundreds of crazy fierce biting ants have invaded my house. Appear to be holding a convention in my roof. Running dangerously low on bug spray. SOS.’ Kate replies: ‘Make a decoy trail with sugar. Throw water on them.’ However, they’ll have nothing to do with sugar, and they are undeterred by water. I decide reconnaissance is the next best plan of action.

Some ants are returning from their lofty convention with a scorpion in tow. Just as quickly as they stormed my house, their descent begins. Once on the ground they continue up the hill carrying off any unfortunate critter that was not fast enough to escape their grip. Within a couple hours, the last of the army has passed through, and my house is vacated minus the lost straggler that would bite my unsuspecting foot. In the evening, the ants go marching down the hill, over the wood pile, and through my bathroom, calling it a day. Hurrah!

Rufino´s pet capuchin, Fotín

The ants´ascent

Swarming about

sorry, you´ll have to turn your head to watch

Leadership

Today the sun came out. Today I pulled off my socks. I removed my fleece jacket and my fleece pants. I did a little happy dance. I danced my way out to my latrine. I brought in my dry clothes after four days of it not drying. Then I took advantage of the first transport in four days and made a bee line for the clinic to sort out the serious mischief that has been brewing in my intestines. A couple more solid weeks of rain have hit Bocas during this supposed dry season. I have surrendered my quest to understand the Bocas definition of dry, but I have not and will not surrender to those mischievous little amoebas that are apparently quite fond of dwelling in my intestines.

Despite the will of my one-celled friends and the rainy cold front stationed over my province, it has been a very productive few weeks. Last week my counterpart Jorge and I gave a two day leadership and project management seminar that covered topics from goal setting, scheduling, budgeting, and group structuring, facilitating, and advertising to formal letter writing, public speaking, and interacting with agencies. In an effort to make the material as interesting as possible, I recruited a group of community members to be actors in skits performed at the start of each session and inserted quick games into the schedule as necessary.

The results surpassed my greatest hopes. Twenty-two participants arrived on the first day, and attendance actually increased for the second day. Better still, I left the seminar with tangible results: two thank you letters for the Ministry of Agriculture’s Department of Rural Development director, a letter of request addressed to me by a young women’s group that formed during the seminar, and a dozen potential logos for my farmers group, which will soon be a formal association! The young women had requested that I facilitate their group’s formation and help them start a project. Yesterday in our first meeting, we decided to pursue native artisan work: baskets, carvings, and jewelry. We all ready have a teacher, and our first work days set for this weekend.

I am quite at a loss for how it happened. Despite my amoeba-sponsored races to latrines, sporadic mud slip-and-slide antics, and language mishaps where things like ‘create children’ rather than ‘raise children’ leave my mouth, I have become a role model. I have a collection of teenage girls that show up at my house to hang out, and now they even seek my guidance. Unfortunately I have started a silly fashion trend of pink handkerchiefs. I seem to sweat a lot, especially here, and in my vain attempt to retain a bit of femininity I thought that a pink hanky would be a good solution. And now they are apparently all the rage among young women in my community. Neck scarves, bandannas, pony tail holders... all in the form of bright pink hankies.

The bridge I cross to enter my site

Kind of scary, but atleast it is being repaired

From the leadership seminar

Leadership seminar

Jorge, starring as the devil in a skit. I, of course, played an angel.