Libraries, Doors, Ant Infestation Redux

It's been raining for two days, and today is no different. It's time for indoor activities like...drum roll...cleaning up the library! So and I take all the books off the rattan shelves and dust off the shelves. Hmmm...mouse and gecko poo, tones of spider webs, dead and living insects and dust. This is a rural library Lao style! It takes 3 hours just to clean the shelves (rattan's a slog to clean), and sweep and mop the floor. Now there's the Herculean task of organizing the books - Ramsey's job.

Gong heard me say yesterday that I didn't have enough needles, so he takes the time to make some extra for me. He proudly shows them to me. Very sweet, but Ramsey is a bit miffed that Gong wasn't on task with his assigned job instead.

Ramsey has assigned Gong to make two doors for the kitchen to keep out the chickens and deter thievery of the kitchen tools. Gong has been dragging his heels and I suggest that Ramsey assign Gong to "show me" how to make a door. Gong likes me and will do things for me when I ask or even before I ask. We strategically use this to make Gong do his job! I also suggest assigning one of the highly competent students, Mai, to help Gong get the job done. Mai is a problem solver, a thinker, a natural leader. Poor Gong is relegated to shotgun position as soon as Mai gets in the picture, but Gong seems relieved to have help and direction. Copper, Sai, Ramsey and I help build the door too. I get better and better at using a machete on bamboo. It was frustrating to begin with, but I'm beginning to understand both the tool and the material better. At the end of the day a door is built. It feels like a victory.

I come back to the library to turn in. Sweet ants swarm over my bags! I go through all the bags and can't find the source of sweetness. Then I see that there is a huge concentration of them on my water bottle. I open the lid and a bunch of them pour out of the lid onto my hand and begin biting me. It isn't the small ones, it's the big ones with the meaty heads and they hurt! I hurl the water bottle down and it's metal casing clangs on the ceramic floor. I try to flick them off, but the big ones have a tenacious hold on my flesh. Finally I have to pry them off and just hope that I don't rip off their bodies while their heads remain attached to me. I drown the bottle in water and manage to get most of them out. Then I notice that they have eaten the edges of the rubber stopper as well as the edge of the hard plastic spout! They were trying to get in. I must have eaten something sweet today and then drank some water and the ants, with their supernatural ability to sense the sweetness, zeroed in on my water bottle. A marvel.

Tomorrow is Friday and after the morning classes, So, Ramsey and I will travel to Vientiane, the Capital of Laos, to visit her family for the next three days.