Well all the little ants are marching, red and black and tan –Dave Matthews Band

Let’s face it, this is Africa people. There are bugs everywhere. Even in the nicest of places there is some form of bugs. The bug that L-O-V-E-S my apartment? Ants. They are everywhere. I can handle them coming in our front door, simply grabbing the broom and sweeping them out. I can withstand washing them down the drain 2 times a day in the shower as they build their hill near our drain. I can endure them crawling all over our garbage can and making their way up the walls into a little crack in the caulk. I can tolerate them crawling on the top of our refrigerator as long as they don’t get into my cereal. I can stomach it when they crawl on me or my clothes. My roommate can bear them crawling out of her light switch and onto her toothbrush. It gets a little harder to undergo when they show up on food that you forgot to put away for an hour or so after spending a whole evening making it. But the thing that I never expected, and grosses me out more than any of the above (which happen daily) is the following. One morning upon returning to my room after bathing I grabbed a q-tip to clean out my ear. Can you imagine what came out on that q-tip along with my ear wax??? That’s right folks…a dead ant. EWWWWWWW…I still cringe just thinking about it! That thing was IN me! It’s not like I’m a dirty person…I shower daily, brush my teeth and hair…but this is Africa. It’ll make you think twice about sticking a q-tip in your ear. I guess you can never be as clean as you might want to me, even without knowing it. I’d much rather have to wipe an ant off of my manzadi and proceed to take a bite any day.