Over the past 7 months, numerous amounts of Latino originated ants have come to call my backpack their home. They traveled with me from country to country, ate the same food I ate, and I’m sure shared in the very same laughs I laughed. It all started in a little country called Puerto Rico…
The first morning I woke up in Puerto Rico I remember seeing ants beside my bed climbing up and down the wall carrying bits of food. It was then that I forgot to take a peanut butter granola wrapper out of my pack and later found the ants had chosen my pack as their home.
As we move onto month 2, the Dominican Republic through month 5 Ecuador the ants continued to enjoy themselves in my pack. Most days i would open up my toiletries bag and there they would be making sure everything was safe. I could always count on them to take care of my stuff when I was out for the day.
In month 6, Panama, I again forgot to take some coffee candy wrappers out of my pack and my Puerto Rican ants were now joined by Panamanian ants. I’m almost 99% sure they then spawned to create super Latino ants.
My teammates often looked at me in disgust and one of my teammates told me one day, “I saw ants crawling in your pack today…they were all up in there”. I always figured they would lose interest once they had finished feeding off my left over wrappers…
The sad end of our travel together was in this month, 7, Costa Rica. It was a cold rainy day and we had just gotten to our hostel. I looked at my packs; dirty, smelly and full of my friends that I had accumulated over 7 months and I made a hard decision…
I asked one of my disgusted teammates for her laundry detergent and I took both of my packs and everything I owned into the bathroom. I then slowly filled the bathtub with water and detergent as I put both my packs and my clothes into the tub. I remember losing track of time until my teammates yelled into the bathroom, “Elaine are you still alive?” I answered yes, and continued to wash my mound of clothes.
and then they were gone…my pack is no longer home to different species of Latin American ants.
Two things I learned from this:
1. Never ever hand wash every piece of clothing you own at the one time
2. and don’t leave food wrappers in your pack
Believe it or not God taught me something out of this experience.
Always clear your mind with God and always clear up offences between you and others. Don’t think something will clean itself out because you will end up months down the road with the same problem only it will have grown into an infestation in your heart. God says to renew our minds in Him. Romans 12:2
