Siafu!

Behold, my sister has provided me with the first guest post for African Bush Stories. Enjoy:

When I was 8 years old I went away to boarding school, and I lived in an old wooden dormitory with 23 other girls. It really was one of the oldest buildings on the school campus.

One night, we all went to bed as usual in our rooms on bunkbeds. I was in room with three other girls and I was on the top bunk. Suddenly I was woken up by screaming as the girls on the bottom bunks jumped out of bed, tearing their clothes off. Suddenly I saw them, the thousands of moving invading pinching ants! Now I was off the bed and out the door as quick as I could, by then our dorm parents were on the scene and out with the bug sprays. The next day we further investigated that the ants had come up through the floor boards and decide to invade a couple of beds.

We called them pinching ants but I have since learned that the local Swahili name is Siafu or more widely they are known as Army or Driver (Dorylus nigricans) ants and boy do they have a mean pinch! The school staff then took to putting piles of ash all around the dorm to prevent this happening again. Two years after this episode the building was torn down and a new cement brick one put up.

Renée