Ants Part II

A few weeks after this first frightening ant near-miss, my guard woke me up yet again in the middle of the night, asking me to come quickly.  There was no electricity that night, but in the darkness I perceived a great commotion coming from the neighbors house.

Their house had just been invaded by red ants.  The ants had entered the small one-room house and attacked the family as they slept.  My guard advised me that we needed to surround my house with kerosene in order to prevent the ants from visiting me too.  So I prepared a basin with water, he stirred in some kerosene, and we used a tree branch to sweep a diluted kerosene trail around the house. 

Now, the funny thing about working at a medical clinic is that everyone in the village decides that you are a doctor.  Despite my continual insistence that I am not one, nobody ever really quite believed me.  Many people approached me with various health problems and became very frustrated that I refused to give a medical opinion.  So the neighbor appeared at my house with his young daughter of about six years.  She was wearing only a shirt, presumably the rest of her clothes had been removed because they were covered in ants.  The girl was whimpering. 

Her father pleaded with me, please help her.  "What is wrong?" I asked, frightened to even hear the answer.  The ants were inside her ear. 

Water in the ear ended up doing the trick.

I had a hard time getting back to sleep that night, too.  Especially when a pouring rain came a few hours later and washed away all the kerosene.

This is the view of the neighbors house from my window.  They live behind the white door on the left.