At Home with the Ants

Well, we moved into our new house on Saturday and what a treat to be able to unpack and feel a bit more settled! In some ways this house is actually the nicest place I have ever lived - somehow I ended up with the master bedroom complete with a walk-in closet and ensuite bathroom - talk about luxurious!!

On the other hand, we have no living room furniture, no working stove, no permanent water solution (we had water trucked in our first night) and lots of ants, HUGE spiders and lizards!

As for the ants, I think its all about keeping them at bay and not actually getting rid of them - they are quite industrious - I will give them that, but I can't say I enjoyed waking up to HUNDREDS in my bed the first night! Turns out my mosquito net (which I had draped to the floor) was in their path from the window to wherever they were headed and I had indirectly added my bed as their new destination - lesson learned, always tuck in your mosquito net to your mattress!

Having a permanent place to live has allowed me to focus more on my work here at MEDA and this week I am finishing up some research on Aids Support Organizations (ASO's) working in Tanzania. This week I am hoping to set up some meetings with folks based in Dar to learn more about the specific work they are doing. At the same time I am reading Stephen Lewis's book "Race Against Time", which is heartbreaking at times and brings such context and urgency to the work we are doing here(Stephen Lewis was head of the UN Envoy on AIDS in Africa). In the lecture I read last night he spoke of a group of Grandmothers he visited who were caring for their orphaned grandchildren. One woman he spoke to had lost all 5 of her children to HIV/AIDS and all of her grandchildren in her care were HIV positive. Its hard to imagine surviving through that kind of loss over and over again.

So really, ants are not that big of a deal. I look forward to my work ahead...