ANTS!

So I have an ant problem at my house. They are always all over my stove, even when my stove is clean (which I now have to be very meticulous about and do several times a day to keep the ants to a minimum). They are also just generally all over the place, but I don’t care if they are on the walls or the floor, I only care when they get into my stuff.

Like my water filter. Tonight as I was filling my water bottle I noticed little black things coming out of the filter along with the water. I held the bottle up. Sure enough, a couple dozen dead ants were swirling around my bottle. I opened the filter. Dozens of dead ants floating around in what would have been my nice clean water. So sometime between last night and tonight they all found their way in there. The only way to get into the clean part of the filter is through this little tiny hole near the top that is there to relieve the pressure as water exits the bucket. It is evidently large enough for an ant to get in. Or several dozen. Who then plunge to their watery deaths. In my clean water.

So I am pissed because I was all ready to brush my teeth and settle down under my mosquito net with Cormac McCarthy’s “Suttree” and instead I have to clean out my water filter, wait for it to dry (which I did not really do, I just dried it with a towel and told myself I would bleach in the bottle for a little while), put it back together and refill it. And for some reason, this filter takes FOREVER to filter the water. Which is weird because the candles are brand new. In Guinea, with new candles, my filter (same brand) would finish a whole top bucket in like 15 minutes. This one takes like an hour. Or more. I don’t even know because I never stick around to see how long it takes because it takes so frigging long. And I can’t brush my teeth and get all settled because I don’t have any clean water to do it with, it is currently being filtered at a snail’s pace.

DAMN YOU ANTS!!!

So next time I am in Bamako I am going to see if one of the ex-pat stores carries ant traps. Ants aren’t cute. So I don’t mind murdering them like I do mice.

Who don’t come into my house anymore thanks to my loud, mean but very cute cat. Who I still have not named. Right now his name is kitty.