David Vs. Goliath

I think I have finally met my match in Thailand and it has driven me to the edge of insanity. You are probably thinking it could possibly be the exotic food, the remoteness of my village, the language barrier, but you are wrong! My arch nemesis has become the most unassuming of creatures: the ant! Now if you are a Peace Corps Thailand volunteer you are most likely nodding your head and wondering why it has taken me such a long time to come to this simple understanding of everyday Thai life. If you have not been directly exposed to ants in Thailand there are other ways that you could come to the realization that there may be a few of these pesky creatures roaming around in Thailand. I suppose one of the main clues would be that upon entering a Thai grocery store you will most likely be confronted with at least an entire aisle devoted solely to their destruction. After hearing, but not fully understanding, other volunteer’s horror stories about the black and red menace I have unfortunately come to a somewhat dramatic realization of the psychological harm they can inflict on an unknowing Peace Corps volunteer.

Now I know in the US we have ants, but we also have a harsh climate that impedes the proliferation of a million varieties these six legged creatures. Secondly, we have houses that are largely sealed off from the outside environment. I think there is no other place that could be more opposite than my village in the mountains of Thailand. My house looks like a sort of chalet when viewed from the outside, but is in reality a very simple structure. The only barrier from the outside world are the boards that have enough cracks in between that they could quite seriously be considered more of a curtain than a wall as understood in the American sense. Furthermore, the moist warm climate seems to be the type of environment that ants must consider a true paradise.

In this paradise Darwin’s theory has taken hold to create a plethora of ant types. They are big, small, red, black, fast, slow, communal, solitary, dangerous, harmless, which all adds up to one giant headache. Everyday it is a battle between me and the ants for the supremacy of this wooden structure that apparently both of us want to call home. As I stroll through my house it is inevitable that I will see ants. Sometimes they are marching in a long line hurriedly following their scent trail to what I suppose must be the ant’s golden city of Dorado, while at other times there is the solitary ant who seems to have lost his way and is in a frantic scramble to find his buddies. Upon moving into my house I attacked each and every ant, or line of ants, with reckless abandon. Ant spray in hand, I would haunt every corner inside and outside of my house in order to rid myself of this infestation. All the while I was inhaling the fumes that take a mere seconds before my unfortunate victims are left squirming on their death bed. I’m sure it has done wonders on my brain and has most likely sapped what little intelligence I have left.

After a couple months I tried to get into the minds of the ants so that I could possibly wage a psychological war on them. I decided that maybe if I left the battle victims laying around my house that it may act as a deterrent to their onward march. After a week test all it left me with was a very dirty house, on to my next contemplation. Where on God’s earth could they be going? The weird thing is that most of my ant problems are not because of food left out. These ants just seemed to love to do their marching exercises throughout my house. They are very strange little animals. My first week at my house I came across hundreds of them with the butts stuck to the porcelain of my toilet. They were just chillin with not to much concern except for keeps their butts stuck to my toilet. After that I encountered groups of them in this same manner with seemingly no explanation for their behavior. I came to the conclusion that maybe my house was just an obstacle in their journey to another destination and that they were just asking for a temporary easement to pass through my property and the occasional overnight stay on my toilet. I decided to leave them be for a short while....what a mistake that was!

I for some reason was looking through my clothes hanging on my bamboo pole. As I went about my business out of the corner of my eye I saw some ants scrambling out of site on the floor. I kept an eye on them and followed them a clump of ants on the floor under my hanging clothes. From this clump exited a line of ants that I then followed until they eventually went out of site into my expensive suit that I brought all the way from the US but have yet to wear. As I pulled off the jacket from the hanger I was inundated with a swarm of black ants. Luckily these ants are not vicious biters so I shook the jacket for a few seconds and then discovered that their destination was not my jacket but rather the hanger it was on. The hanger is a fancy one that is rather large and has a hollowed out backside. It appears that these ants had decided that it would be a perfect place for their new nest! I took it outside and gassed it good. I must have killed a half billion ants! As hard as it may be to believe, this was not the end to the day’s adventures.

A few hours later I decided, given my recent experience, that I needed to investigate where some much larger red ants that I kept on encountering on my desk had their hideout. As stealthy as a black cat at night, I stalked a solitary ant as he crossed the expanse of my desk. He cautiously crept forward and then quickly scaled a box made of handmade paper that we had been given by Peace Corps to store our HIV/AIDS material. I was prepared with my bottle of ant spray in hand as I opened the lid. Sure enough these guys had decided as well that they had found a perfect home. Chalk another couple hundred thousand dead thanks to my war effort.

I find myself today only a few days removed from that dramatic day’s event and wondering what can I do. I think it is a never ending battle, much like Bush’s war on terror. The million dollar question is; how do I avoid the blunders that have plagued our great president in Iraq with relation to my war on my six legged enemies. I think I’m going to sit down and have a summit with them. I’ll be sure to let you know the outcome after it is over!