Mposhi Invasion!

Plip. Plop.
At 2:30am I awoke to the sound of rain outside. No...wait. Outside it was still. Weird.
I rubbed my eyes, flipped on my headlamp and looked around. A few small ants scampered over my sheets. Flashing the beam of light upward I saw another tangled in the mosquito netting. And another. And another falling through. Uh oh.

Everyone's worst nightmare. African army ants: mposhi--Little red devils that work in a team to devour anything they can find. During training we'd throw frogs to them and watch as--within seconds--the furious little insects would cover them by the thousands and treat them to a slow and painful demise. Now this must be karma.

I jumped out of bed and waited for my eyes to adjust; bad idea. Already they were waiting on the floor and began scaling my feet, inflicting tiny bites in regular intervals. OUCH! I jumped onto the stool in my living room, brushing and swatting at my feet, quickly striking a match for the candles. I looked around. Everywhere. They were EVERYWHERE. Forming neat little lines in the thousands that curved around the bucket, the garbage can, the table leg; marching to and fro with expert precision. I grabbed the spare piece of rubber tire I'd been saving and lit it from the candle, swinging it back and forth over the mass of tiny bodies. Bits of flaming rubber shot out and disrupted their paths, but caused only minor setbacks. The initial pandemonium ebbed, from which they made new paths and continued undaunted.

This is a losing battle, I thought. After reflecting on the hilarity of myself perched atop a stool swinging fire at masses of insects in the wee early morning hours, I decided to surrender the house to nature's minions and set up the tent in the insaka. No such luck. They were there too, in the yard AND the insaka. It was a full scale attack! I retreated, cornered, back into the house and took a seat in my chair, watching the demonic hordes dragging moths, spiders, crickets, and termites out of the walls and roof, treating them to writhing death throes. With the initial shock fully abated, I pulled out a book and read for several hours until daylight approached and the little red armies dissipated and vanished into the morning.

Cool stuff. I escaped...this time.
In the meantime I should seriously consider leasing my living quarters to Animal Planet.