Wednesday, May 09, 2007
One long week
It’s Saturday of what has been my longest week in Tanzania…or maybe it was the shortest, I did sleep a lot. Now I sit in the sporadic shade of the pepper tree while I await the return of a young tribesman from the Yaida Chini Valley who is coming back to sell me a bow and arrows. Nik and Abby went to town with Jeanine and I was left to take a nap as I am recovering from three and a half days of illness.
It hit me – the illness that is – on Wednesday evening just before Abby went to bed. General abdominal pain but nothing to serious at this point. Then around 9 or so the nausea had set in and I was getting pretty tired so Nik and I decided to turn in for the night. As part of the nightly routine, I made a trip to the bathroom and with a click of the light was confronted by a few hundred ants making a little interstate highway system between the hole in the wall, the tub, floor and two walls. I chuckled, as I knew we had enough DOOM (wicked bug spray) to dispatch this many of the little, biting buggers. The only trouble was that the DOOM was in the office, 8 meters away across the front yard. The concern with making a walk like that at this time of night was the mosquitoes, but even in my weakened condition I was ready to make a dash for it.
As I approached our front door I found that the mosquitoes were not my only concern; more ants had decided that if the interstate was out of commission in the bathroom they would simply set up a little railroad line along the door frame. As I opened the door, now with the little railroaders biting my feet and ankles my eyes were granted a birds-eye view of the entire colony on our front patio. Easily thousands of not so tiny black biting ants were staking their claim in the form a moving blanket of blackness on the cement. I felt like Indiana Jones as I leapt through the mass of insects. I narrowly missed a swarm of ants that were apparently dismantling a beetle (the beetle didn’t stand a chance) and with two steps was on the grass and sprinting for the office door. I stopped short of the office and brushed away the ants that were now munching on my toes and halfway up to my knees. I safety of the grass was only an illusion and my flashlight beam settled on the threshold of the office door illuminating a whole suburb new of Antropolos. The longer I stood brushing ants off, the more of them climbed aboard. So I braved the snapping mandibles and with lightning quickness unlocked the office and snatched up my trusty can of DOOM. I made short work of the suburb and headed for the house.
We dispatched our foe in no time with many bursts from the red and yellow can and undertook a thorough recon of any other possible entry points. We found nothing but a beetle here and a little spider there and after squishing these invaders we turned in.
The morning did not begin well for me. Fever had taken hold and my guts were churning like mad. Of course this meant that I had Malaria, or at least I should get tested for it. So I made my way through the hospital to the lab and got my finger stabbed. When I stumbled home, my energy having left me, I found the girls speaking to Jeanine (our doctor friend). She gave me the once over and said with my symptoms there was no way I had Malaria and she ran home to get me some medicine. She returned shortly and I popped the Tidizole and went to bed. A couple of days later I got up and tried to function, I ate breakfast, started teaching Abby when once again the energy left. I dropped back into bed and woke up the next day, today.
I still had little energy so when the girls left to town I was going to go to bed to ensure that I would be rested enough to function for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, or fortunately, a guy came by to talk about bows and arrows. India Badio, was from the Yaida Chini, he wore western clothes that were given to him by a German guy somewhere with a small beaded headband. We talked about his past and the fact that as a child he had been taken from his family and put in school where he had learned English. His English was fairly good but having grown up speaking the click language he had trouble with certain letters.
We also spoke about his name, India (the second I is pronounced I) means, “pig liver” and Bagio (bag I O) means of his grandfather. So I asked him, “You mean pig liver of your Grandfather?” He gave a large smile and said yes, “Pig Liver” with hand gestures showing something wide and long, “of my grandfathers.” He repeated this with the gestures a few times before I got the idea. “Oh, Oh. Big River of your Grandfathers.” It was obvious I was right, or more right now and he smiled again and said, “ya ya!” So I take it his name means big river of his ancestors. After a bit of talking he left to get the bow and arrows and bring them back for me to see. I'm not sure if or when he'll return as he had to go up the Liver to get to where the bow and arrows were parked. If he ever returns I will be able to hunt a pig and see just how big its liver is.
It hit me – the illness that is – on Wednesday evening just before Abby went to bed. General abdominal pain but nothing to serious at this point. Then around 9 or so the nausea had set in and I was getting pretty tired so Nik and I decided to turn in for the night. As part of the nightly routine, I made a trip to the bathroom and with a click of the light was confronted by a few hundred ants making a little interstate highway system between the hole in the wall, the tub, floor and two walls. I chuckled, as I knew we had enough DOOM (wicked bug spray) to dispatch this many of the little, biting buggers. The only trouble was that the DOOM was in the office, 8 meters away across the front yard. The concern with making a walk like that at this time of night was the mosquitoes, but even in my weakened condition I was ready to make a dash for it.
As I approached our front door I found that the mosquitoes were not my only concern; more ants had decided that if the interstate was out of commission in the bathroom they would simply set up a little railroad line along the door frame. As I opened the door, now with the little railroaders biting my feet and ankles my eyes were granted a birds-eye view of the entire colony on our front patio. Easily thousands of not so tiny black biting ants were staking their claim in the form a moving blanket of blackness on the cement. I felt like Indiana Jones as I leapt through the mass of insects. I narrowly missed a swarm of ants that were apparently dismantling a beetle (the beetle didn’t stand a chance) and with two steps was on the grass and sprinting for the office door. I stopped short of the office and brushed away the ants that were now munching on my toes and halfway up to my knees. I safety of the grass was only an illusion and my flashlight beam settled on the threshold of the office door illuminating a whole suburb new of Antropolos. The longer I stood brushing ants off, the more of them climbed aboard. So I braved the snapping mandibles and with lightning quickness unlocked the office and snatched up my trusty can of DOOM. I made short work of the suburb and headed for the house.
We dispatched our foe in no time with many bursts from the red and yellow can and undertook a thorough recon of any other possible entry points. We found nothing but a beetle here and a little spider there and after squishing these invaders we turned in.
The morning did not begin well for me. Fever had taken hold and my guts were churning like mad. Of course this meant that I had Malaria, or at least I should get tested for it. So I made my way through the hospital to the lab and got my finger stabbed. When I stumbled home, my energy having left me, I found the girls speaking to Jeanine (our doctor friend). She gave me the once over and said with my symptoms there was no way I had Malaria and she ran home to get me some medicine. She returned shortly and I popped the Tidizole and went to bed. A couple of days later I got up and tried to function, I ate breakfast, started teaching Abby when once again the energy left. I dropped back into bed and woke up the next day, today.
I still had little energy so when the girls left to town I was going to go to bed to ensure that I would be rested enough to function for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, or fortunately, a guy came by to talk about bows and arrows. India Badio, was from the Yaida Chini, he wore western clothes that were given to him by a German guy somewhere with a small beaded headband. We talked about his past and the fact that as a child he had been taken from his family and put in school where he had learned English. His English was fairly good but having grown up speaking the click language he had trouble with certain letters.
We also spoke about his name, India (the second I is pronounced I) means, “pig liver” and Bagio (bag I O) means of his grandfather. So I asked him, “You mean pig liver of your Grandfather?” He gave a large smile and said yes, “Pig Liver” with hand gestures showing something wide and long, “of my grandfathers.” He repeated this with the gestures a few times before I got the idea. “Oh, Oh. Big River of your Grandfathers.” It was obvious I was right, or more right now and he smiled again and said, “ya ya!” So I take it his name means big river of his ancestors. After a bit of talking he left to get the bow and arrows and bring them back for me to see. I'm not sure if or when he'll return as he had to go up the Liver to get to where the bow and arrows were parked. If he ever returns I will be able to hunt a pig and see just how big its liver is.
