ant

Well… this time around, I did NOT come close to dying, that’s progress.
I did, however, end up in a weepy, hysterical state, driven beyond distraction by the 22+ ant bites swelling in a jagged ring around my lower legs & ankles, plus the few on my back, thighs, and a patch on my elbow (?!?!… were they lying in wait in the jeep when we went to get fencing supplies?). 
So miserable, itchy, and on fire, in fact that I came to the desperate conclusion that “I cannot DO this anymore…I have failed.” and “I should cancel my trip to Thailand and book a flight back to San Francisco”, the whole “home-shmome” debate weightless relative to the crush of this 3 month accumulation of discomforts, from the small to the seemingly enormous. “I want to be cold. clean. dry. to be distinctly NOT covered in prickly fire and huge welts weeping from being rubbed (I seem to have just enough self-control not to scratch them with my nails, but, at night in particular, am driven beyond restraint to rub them violently against the rough bedding, my own flat palms, whatever, and must surely appear to be having a Grand Mal seizure!)
Thankfully everyone but Dinesh was asleep by the time I truly lost it. It broke my heart when he said “Ok, alleh, tomorrow we will move to a hotel. This life is no problem for Us but it is no good for You. I see that now.” Heartbreak. Failure. I have been SO careful to try to avoid the ants - they are tiny and can easily go unnoticed, but I try not to stand anywhere too long, and certainly look for them wherever I go… and STILL they get me! In the middle of the night , “Cuando No Hay Doctor”,  there is a level of fear in the mix as well - I do not yet have an epi pen - and I feel both crazily uncomfortable and uncomfortably crazy.
Anyway, another day has dawned, there is a slight breeze - not enough to keep the flies off, but enough to feel momentarily heartened. Of course I will not follow through on the night’s proclamations… I don’t even want to leave the Harsha home, let alone Sri Lanka! How I will avoid these ants, however, is a serious question.
We will finish the dog pen today. Dinesh, Rohan, Danenjer, and Tishan worked into late evening to get the posts set in concrete  and in the ground yesterday, and now the chainlink fencing and the gate can be put up. 
Exciting. 
1-0 , Us v. Inertia.