Ants in the pants!

Besides bats in the shower and in the tent as well as TONS of spiders that would literally spin a web between your legs if you stood still too long (and when we set our backpacks down, they'd would instantly be covered with 20 spiders, no exaggeration), there were these HUGE driver ants that grab hold of your flesh with their sharp pinchers and dont let go! One day we hiked down to our work site at the beach and there were driver ants all over the big pile of grass we were planting. Someone had to be brave enough to try to get some grass w/o getting bit, so Jonas made the first run for it and made it back out alive with a huge armful of grass. After that was all planted, Anissa decided it wasnt fair to risk a child getting bit, so she made the 2nd run and also made it safely back out with a pile of grass. So then she was feeling quite confident and volunteered to "take one for the team" and make another run "into the war zone" to get the  goods. Her 2nd attempt was disastrous! Now what u need to know when reading the title of this post, is that here in Africa they call pants "trousers" and they call underwear "pants". Culturally, you don't expose yourself except for below the knees. Women have to wear skirts except when doing manual labor or playing sports (they consider female thighs, the most sensual part of the body.....it is more acceptable to expose your breasts than it is to expose your thighs). We have to wash our own "pants" by hand because it would be inappropriate for any of the staff to see or touch our underwear. You also need to know that the bites from driver ants are not little stings like our red ants back home....these guys dig into your skin! So yes, before she knew it, she had ants all the way up and down both legs, and even in her underwear! All at once there was a huge biting sensation all over the lower half of her body (what she learned later is that they wait until they cover their prey, then send out a hormone to signal each other to bite at the exact same time).  You can imagine the scene that followed. Joey only wishes he had it on video! Both shoes & socks went flying (her white socks were solid black from being completely covered with ants) and down went the trousers, as she yelled out "Sorry about the rules!" The pants managed to stay mostly on, but in that moment of complete panic & pain, one doesn't care who sees what! She still has a bruise in the shape of a handprint from smacking her thighs & butt cheeks so hard! So it was quite an entertaining morning for the team, staff, and a few passer-bys who had quite a story to take back to the village about the crazy mzungu (white) lady jumping around in her pants, screaming & flailing, wildly smacking herself!

Wikipedia: Also known as Safari Ants, Driver Ants are found in the forests of central and eastern Africa. They are approximately twice the size of a hornet. Such is the strength of the ant's jaws that they are used as natural, emergencysutures. Various East African indigenous tribal peoples, when suffering from a gash in the bush, will use the soldiers to stitch the wound by getting the ants to bite on both sides of the gash, then breaking off the body. This use of ants as makeshiftsurgical staples creates a seal that can hold for days at a time.