Flying ants, paint fumes, and an attempted break in

When I started Peace Corps two years ago, I never thought I would face two infestations during my short time in South Africa. I should have known better. I had to move yet again at the end of November thanks to good old flying ants. It went something like this…

One happy sunny Saturday I was busy packing up some things to take with me to a training in Joburg that my organization was letting me attend. The day seemed normal for summer- hot, sunny, and dry. As I was just about to leave, I glanced toward my door to see the chickens swarming. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing, so I moved to the door only to see flying bugs everywhere. I panicked and closed the door, unclear as to what was happening. I quickly opened it and went out to see where the things were coming from, only to be terrified to see them hatching out of the walls of my hut. In every crack of the homemade poop plaster, there were flying bugs hatching and flying out. Each crack was also filled with larvae. The chickens were simply trying to eat the flying creatures as they pooped out of my wall. Disgusted and covered with goose bumps, I got my can of Doom bug killer and sprayed each crack until I was sure the things were dead. Then I grabbed my shit and left, telling my host sister my wall was pooping bugs and asking her to tell my host family so they could fill the cracks. It wasn’t until I was on my way that I realized that there were probably cracks on the inside of my hut as well, and if they were hatching on the outside from the cracks, they would probably do the same thing on the inside. At this point I was assuming they were termites.

Forward a week later, Friday night around 8pm. I had just gotten back from the training and my supervisor was driving me back to my village. As we entered the village, I noticed that there were a ton of bugs flying around, and the further in we drove, the worse it got, with the windshield wipers needing to be turned on to push them out of the way. My supervisor told me they were flying ants and that it happens every couple of years. Great! My fears of my hut being infested were creeping back up and as we pulled into my yard, I told my supervisor that she wasn’t allowed to leave until I checked (although I was still hoping that I was being paranoid). My light is on the other side of my hut from the door, so I opened up and walked in, crossing the room to turn on the light. Once on, I looked down and to my horror, my floor was covered in dead flying ants that I had just walked across. Thousands of dead flying ants. Guess I was right about those indoor cracks. So like the brave girl that I am, I ran screaming and crying from my room out into the bug infested night. I told my supervisor, she checked out, we told my host family, they apologized and started sweeping them up, and then I left, choosing to stay the night with my supervisor instead. I knew at that moment that I wasn’t going back there, especially since my fear of bugs has grown exponentially since I have had these infestations.

I called some exterminators to see if there was anything I could do, but they were in the dirt foundation and there aren’t many cheap options for taking care of this problem. Two weeks later, I was living at the community center in Emmaus, yet another village in yet another room.

Now the community center is pretty nice, has a shower/toilet block, so no more bucket bathing, and the woman who lives there is remarkable and speaks English well. The room I was put in was twice the size of my last room and had a ceiling and tiled floor, so the chance of another infestation was reduced simply because it is built properly. It used to be the old kitchen for the center, so before they moved me in, they decided to paint the room to make it new and fresh. What they didn’t tell me was that they decided to use the cheapest, most toxic oil based paint they could find. The first week after I moved in I figured the smell was just because it had been painted two weeks before, but after a month and then a month and a half of horrible toxic fumes, I was starting to wonder if the paint was normal. My breathing started to suffer, I had to sleep with a cloth covering my mouth, and I eventually bought an inhaler to help me breathe better.

Not one to sit by and take living in shit, I researched home remedies. I tried putting buckets of water around the room to absorb the smell, I chopped up plates of onions, I put out white vinegar in bowls, and I put cups of vanilla extract all around the room. Nothing helped!! If the windows were shut, it was like a death box of fumes and it was awful.

I decided, against my better judgment, to sleep with two windows open at night, even though I didn’t have bars. The smell was just that bad. One of the windows I kept open was by the head of my bed so that I could have fresh air while sleeping and hopefully not die in the night. I see now that this is where I went wrong. One night, roughly about 11pm, I was sound asleep and dreaming when something woke me up. I looked out the window and didn’t see anything, so I thought I was being paranoid again and tried to go back to sleep. About 20 minutes later I heard something again and as I lifted my head to look out the window, I came face to face with some guy, standing in the dark right outside my window. Great. Just great. Again, acting as all brave young women act, I screamed at the top of my lungs for as long as one breath allows and the dick ran off. I then went to get the others who live at the center to help me.

The next morning we discovered that someone had cut a hole in the fence surrounding the property and that is how they got into the yard and to my open window. They probably thought the room was empty, seeing as how the others were watching TV in the common room when everything happened. I guess it was good that I woke up and prevented the dick from stealing my things, but the scare it gave me lasted weeks and to this day I sometimes wake up to a noise at night with plans to scream.
All in all, it was a rocky first month at my new home, but now, a month (and vacation) later, I can say that I am settling in well. They put bars on the windows that open (although I don’t sleep with my windows open anymore) and the paint smell is better, although it is still there. I’m pretty sure I heard some gun shots a couple weekends back, but as long as they aren’t shooting in my yard, I’m not too concerned about it. And so far, nobody else has tried to break in, so that is a bonus!! The showers make up for the lack of feeling secure, except for when we run out of water and then have to wheelbarrow to the neighbors to fetch buckets again, old school style. I tell you what, I can’t wait to have constant running water again. That is what is bringing me home in July!!