The time had come to embark on a mission that could change my life forever, or at least my nights sleep for the remaining 20 days of my stay in my room. It was time to get to the bottom of why these ants loved my company so much and free my mind of the paranoia I have that one day I will wake up from a poor attempt at a nights sleep, and find myself covered in creatures that I would quite preferably like to have as far away from me as possible. Over the past couple of days I have read back some of the blog’s I have posted and I have come to realise that I could be easily perceived as a bit of a moaner. I really do sound like I sometimes stress out a little too much about things and come across as a bit of a hypochondriac when it comes to sickness. To tell you the truth though, my surroundings are a lot different to what I'm used to back home and this is kind of causing me to respond to things in different ways. But really, as far as the moaning is concerned, I basically... pretty much... I just love it!
So I woke up Saturday morning with a banging headache and jumped in the shower to try and refresh myself somehow. The power went half way through washing, so I was certainly woken up more once the freezing cold water shot down quite rapidly onto my body. Today the guys were going to visiting Webuye Falls and since I had already seen these just days previously, plus the fact that I wasn’t feeling the best, I decided to give it a miss and stick around at the guesthouse and complete some other jobs in mind.
Once the guys had left I decided to embark on giving my room a good clean to try and figure out why these ants were hanging out with me or at least prevent any more from appearing. I began by stripping my bed as it was now time for some new sheets anyway and then I began by moving all the main furniture including, chairs, shelving and suitcase, outside my door. I put all the junk that I have had lying around along my stay onto my bed and moved it into a better position to enable me to get my sweep on and use the relatively new sweeping brush to the best of my ability. There wasn’t much to sweep really, just a little bit of dust and mud that had collected in areas and a few clumps of cotton balls that had congregated along the top of my wardrobe. I became quite hot relatively quickly and I seemed to be putting some hard work into getting this place spotless. The room wasn’t exactly a mess before I started really, never the less it could have done with a bit of a revamp as it had appeared almost the same for more than two months of my stay.
Very soon the room began to look very tidy and a lot bigger than before. It appeared quite bare but at the same time very appealing, infact I was hesitating whether to bring all the furniture back in as it looked so much better. Leaving the furniture still outside for a while I began to clean my bathroom. I filled my two buckets up with water and soap and grabbed the old and scraggy mop that I found outside by the washing area. Hooking all curtains out of the way and removing all utensils from the room, I scrubbed the floor creating extreme measures of soap and water. It soon became very slippery so I had to be careful of my ever move. I made sure I got into every possible spot that the mop could reach and soon the place was beginning to look shinier. Throwing my used water down the poor draining system by the shower, the room soon began to flood with water. After a while the soap suds disappeared and I left the place to dry whilst I had a light lunch and chilled in the guesthouse waiting for the guys to return.
By now my headache had gone. The two paracetamol had done their job well and I was feeling much better and almost prepared for the afternoon session at the office. Matthew, John and Emily arrived back at the guesthouse for around 2pm but didn’t stay long before heading to the office for their introduction session and to be prayed for. Not ready and planning on having a short sleep before I left for the rest of the day, I hung back and arranged my room before having a lie down for a couple of hours.
Waking up around 4.30pm I decided I would get ready and make my way to the office. I got up out of bed and went to my wardrobe to grab some clean clothes to wear for the evening. I grabbed a sweater and a T Shirt from the main wardrobe, some trousers from my top draw, then reached into the bottom draw to collect some clean underwear and some socks. Pulling the bottom drawer open a little further than usual, I noticed stuffed in the back was a plastic bag that I hadn’t seen in ages. This particular bad had been used a little at the beginning of my stay and help several lolly pops and sticky sweats that I had been munching myself and giving to the kids. Reaching into the bag to see what was left, that’s when I had my little surprise. I finally found out where these ants were congregating mainly in my room and I was so relieved to know why they were there. Grabbing the bag that was infested with these small, black, fast moving ants, I quickly threw it into my bin and took it outside. Surprisingly the ants had only spent their time gathering together in the bag of goodies and stayed away from my socks and underwear. I had been reaching in and using the socks and underwear for days and not even spotted the bag once, I was lucky and this could quite easily have resulted in a severe case of “Ants in my Pants”.
I got ready and jumped on my bike into town just to buy some fly spray to make sure there were no more little rascals near any of my items of clothing. After visiting several shops I finally found some fly spray that I knew had a nice smell to it but most importantly worked. On return I sprayed my room and specific areas with this caramel scented fly killing machine, then grabbed my Bible and made my way on foot to the office.
On the way I passed several people who were making their way back from the session. At this time there must have been a break so I continued on to the office where I found everyone just beginning to gather back together to resume their prayers. I found myself involved in a group activity and this was the first time in the three Prayer and Fasting weekends I had attended, that I had been involved in prayer that involved separating into small teams. I was based with Solomon and three other people, two men and one woman. Previously in the day, prayer items and thanksgiving items had been noted down on paper, so we discussed these and shared them out amongst ourselves to be later prayed for. I was only given a couple of prayer items but still made a valid contribution to our team’s prayers.
After an hour or so we were all reunited together again in the main hall for the last stretch of this Saturday’s session. I was sat with John as he played an amazing tune on the Piano which inspired me even more to try and learn when I get home. He then stood and played the guitar whilst we all sang and then later we heard testimonies and messages that were given. Just before we broke to end the session we all stood together to form a U shape and were presented with bread and Vimto as wine as communion. The session ended at around 9pm and just before everyone left Solomon introduced the two new visitors and called me up to the front of the hall. I stood whilst Solomon explained a little more to the congregation about the Gap Programme and encouraged people to invite and get to know the volunteers more. He explained about the programme I have set up out here and told them that today was my last Prayer and Fasting session and that I only had only a small number of days remaining. After he finished his talk he asked me if I would like to say a few words to the people who were sat listening and peering to the front of the hall. I was a little hesitant at first as I hadn’t prepared anything to say and was a little over whelmed with the nice words and message Solomon had just put across. I knew I should really say something and that now was as good of time as any, so I said a few words to show my appreciation and thanked them for my pleasant and enjoyable stay.
Leaving the offices quite promptly in the dark, I walked back with a few people from in and around the Mission, who expressed how they were going to miss me also. I made it back and sat around with Dennis and Matthew in the Simba as the guesthouse had been locked up, with the tired visitors in bed.
On Sunday I woke up for breakfast then sharply after met with Leonard where Emily and I went with him to the Christian Glory Centre church for the English service. This is the church Leonard regularly attends so he showed us around quickly and then we were shown to our seats in the left section at the side of the main preaching platform. We seemed to be the only people sat in this particular section with most of the congregation sat facing the Pastor as he preached. The service didn’t last too long and within an hour and a half we had finished and were leaving Leonard to continue and lead the Swahili service.
So Emily and I walked back to the guesthouse greeting the little children along the way. Back at the guesthouse we took advantage of the morning sun and sat out on the chairs on the grass talking about our lives back home. Emily told me a bit about how when she was younger she did some travelling visiting places such as Ghana and America, touring and also doing bits of work along the way.
Once we had left the small garden area where we were sat, where we would normally do and hang our washing, we were visited by Ann who came round to say hey and see how things went in the morning. She then invited us over to the house to talk and read with the children that were at her place after their morning services. Suggesting we may come over and visit later, she then left and soon after the guys returned from a very productive morning of teaching in Sunday school. John and Matthew had been to St James Church, attending the service but most importantly adding a contribution to the morning Sunday school activities. They had been using messages from the Bible and music to get the children involved and give them an interesting and educating experience.
After lunch the dining hall turned into what could have been the scene from a child’s birthday party. We were discussing games in which the children who were to attend the IcFEM holiday club in the next coming week could play, then we began to perform these games just to get those of us who weren’t so familiar with the games more up to speed. I learned four new games which had similar rules and objectives as some I already know. “King of the Jungle” required one of the players to be the Lion, another was a one cell organism, and then the rest of the players had to be those animals which came between both of the already suggested characters. Each player had a seat and an action representing their animal allocated to them and if they made a mistake when they were called to perform their action, along with someone else’s action for them to take their go, they became the one cell organism and had to switch seats. Everyone would eventually move along switching seats and becoming a new character. Remembering everyone’s action and character, including your own is essential, and it became a lot of fun and we had many laughs playing and acting stupid. The other games had similar rules and objectives and were equally as fun. We spent some time making a lot of noise and raising a few eyebrows from the staff working in the kitchen, but then retired after about half an hour of playing.
Shattered, probably from playing these games at lunch and having to dash round the tables to keep the pace of the game up, we all did our own thing with some of us crashing out in our rooms. Matthew had a couple of hour’s sleep in his room, whilst I lay in bed and caught up on a few moments of shut eye too. I wasn’t gone long, then rose from my bed for a bit of exercise and jumped on my bike taking a trip to town. I rode all through town along to where the market usually is based. I rode on past the market but soon turned round and headed back to the guesthouse taking an alternate route this time.
Back at the guesthouse I sat and watched whilst Matthew did some washing before dinner. After talking for a few minutes I started to feel a little less lively than usual and started to experience some pains in my stomach. They had been on and off all day but I never really thought anything of them until now. After a couple of minutes it began to make me feel uncomfortable and as a result, I wasn’t looking too forward to dinner and I wasn’t really in the mood to be very active.
After eating dinner on a slightly dickey stomach, I sat around in the guesthouse with the guys as we chatted and watched some television. I wasn’t much fun and really didn’t feel like being that sociable, so rather than sitting there and look slightly miserable, I headed to my room to sleep off what seems to be a bit of a recurring sickness. I really don’t know what causes these stomach upsets but as soon as I find out, ill surely let you know.
So I woke up Saturday morning with a banging headache and jumped in the shower to try and refresh myself somehow. The power went half way through washing, so I was certainly woken up more once the freezing cold water shot down quite rapidly onto my body. Today the guys were going to visiting Webuye Falls and since I had already seen these just days previously, plus the fact that I wasn’t feeling the best, I decided to give it a miss and stick around at the guesthouse and complete some other jobs in mind.
Once the guys had left I decided to embark on giving my room a good clean to try and figure out why these ants were hanging out with me or at least prevent any more from appearing. I began by stripping my bed as it was now time for some new sheets anyway and then I began by moving all the main furniture including, chairs, shelving and suitcase, outside my door. I put all the junk that I have had lying around along my stay onto my bed and moved it into a better position to enable me to get my sweep on and use the relatively new sweeping brush to the best of my ability. There wasn’t much to sweep really, just a little bit of dust and mud that had collected in areas and a few clumps of cotton balls that had congregated along the top of my wardrobe. I became quite hot relatively quickly and I seemed to be putting some hard work into getting this place spotless. The room wasn’t exactly a mess before I started really, never the less it could have done with a bit of a revamp as it had appeared almost the same for more than two months of my stay.
Very soon the room began to look very tidy and a lot bigger than before. It appeared quite bare but at the same time very appealing, infact I was hesitating whether to bring all the furniture back in as it looked so much better. Leaving the furniture still outside for a while I began to clean my bathroom. I filled my two buckets up with water and soap and grabbed the old and scraggy mop that I found outside by the washing area. Hooking all curtains out of the way and removing all utensils from the room, I scrubbed the floor creating extreme measures of soap and water. It soon became very slippery so I had to be careful of my ever move. I made sure I got into every possible spot that the mop could reach and soon the place was beginning to look shinier. Throwing my used water down the poor draining system by the shower, the room soon began to flood with water. After a while the soap suds disappeared and I left the place to dry whilst I had a light lunch and chilled in the guesthouse waiting for the guys to return.
By now my headache had gone. The two paracetamol had done their job well and I was feeling much better and almost prepared for the afternoon session at the office. Matthew, John and Emily arrived back at the guesthouse for around 2pm but didn’t stay long before heading to the office for their introduction session and to be prayed for. Not ready and planning on having a short sleep before I left for the rest of the day, I hung back and arranged my room before having a lie down for a couple of hours. Waking up around 4.30pm I decided I would get ready and make my way to the office. I got up out of bed and went to my wardrobe to grab some clean clothes to wear for the evening. I grabbed a sweater and a T Shirt from the main wardrobe, some trousers from my top draw, then reached into the bottom draw to collect some clean underwear and some socks. Pulling the bottom drawer open a little further than usual, I noticed stuffed in the back was a plastic bag that I hadn’t seen in ages. This particular bad had been used a little at the beginning of my stay and help several lolly pops and sticky sweats that I had been munching myself and giving to the kids. Reaching into the bag to see what was left, that’s when I had my little surprise. I finally found out where these ants were congregating mainly in my room and I was so relieved to know why they were there. Grabbing the bag that was infested with these small, black, fast moving ants, I quickly threw it into my bin and took it outside. Surprisingly the ants had only spent their time gathering together in the bag of goodies and stayed away from my socks and underwear. I had been reaching in and using the socks and underwear for days and not even spotted the bag once, I was lucky and this could quite easily have resulted in a severe case of “Ants in my Pants”.
I got ready and jumped on my bike into town just to buy some fly spray to make sure there were no more little rascals near any of my items of clothing. After visiting several shops I finally found some fly spray that I knew had a nice smell to it but most importantly worked. On return I sprayed my room and specific areas with this caramel scented fly killing machine, then grabbed my Bible and made my way on foot to the office.On the way I passed several people who were making their way back from the session. At this time there must have been a break so I continued on to the office where I found everyone just beginning to gather back together to resume their prayers. I found myself involved in a group activity and this was the first time in the three Prayer and Fasting weekends I had attended, that I had been involved in prayer that involved separating into small teams. I was based with Solomon and three other people, two men and one woman. Previously in the day, prayer items and thanksgiving items had been noted down on paper, so we discussed these and shared them out amongst ourselves to be later prayed for. I was only given a couple of prayer items but still made a valid contribution to our team’s prayers.
After an hour or so we were all reunited together again in the main hall for the last stretch of this Saturday’s session. I was sat with John as he played an amazing tune on the Piano which inspired me even more to try and learn when I get home. He then stood and played the guitar whilst we all sang and then later we heard testimonies and messages that were given. Just before we broke to end the session we all stood together to form a U shape and were presented with bread and Vimto as wine as communion. The session ended at around 9pm and just before everyone left Solomon introduced the two new visitors and called me up to the front of the hall. I stood whilst Solomon explained a little more to the congregation about the Gap Programme and encouraged people to invite and get to know the volunteers more. He explained about the programme I have set up out here and told them that today was my last Prayer and Fasting session and that I only had only a small number of days remaining. After he finished his talk he asked me if I would like to say a few words to the people who were sat listening and peering to the front of the hall. I was a little hesitant at first as I hadn’t prepared anything to say and was a little over whelmed with the nice words and message Solomon had just put across. I knew I should really say something and that now was as good of time as any, so I said a few words to show my appreciation and thanked them for my pleasant and enjoyable stay.
Leaving the offices quite promptly in the dark, I walked back with a few people from in and around the Mission, who expressed how they were going to miss me also. I made it back and sat around with Dennis and Matthew in the Simba as the guesthouse had been locked up, with the tired visitors in bed.
On Sunday I woke up for breakfast then sharply after met with Leonard where Emily and I went with him to the Christian Glory Centre church for the English service. This is the church Leonard regularly attends so he showed us around quickly and then we were shown to our seats in the left section at the side of the main preaching platform. We seemed to be the only people sat in this particular section with most of the congregation sat facing the Pastor as he preached. The service didn’t last too long and within an hour and a half we had finished and were leaving Leonard to continue and lead the Swahili service.
So Emily and I walked back to the guesthouse greeting the little children along the way. Back at the guesthouse we took advantage of the morning sun and sat out on the chairs on the grass talking about our lives back home. Emily told me a bit about how when she was younger she did some travelling visiting places such as Ghana and America, touring and also doing bits of work along the way.
Once we had left the small garden area where we were sat, where we would normally do and hang our washing, we were visited by Ann who came round to say hey and see how things went in the morning. She then invited us over to the house to talk and read with the children that were at her place after their morning services. Suggesting we may come over and visit later, she then left and soon after the guys returned from a very productive morning of teaching in Sunday school. John and Matthew had been to St James Church, attending the service but most importantly adding a contribution to the morning Sunday school activities. They had been using messages from the Bible and music to get the children involved and give them an interesting and educating experience.
After lunch the dining hall turned into what could have been the scene from a child’s birthday party. We were discussing games in which the children who were to attend the IcFEM holiday club in the next coming week could play, then we began to perform these games just to get those of us who weren’t so familiar with the games more up to speed. I learned four new games which had similar rules and objectives as some I already know. “King of the Jungle” required one of the players to be the Lion, another was a one cell organism, and then the rest of the players had to be those animals which came between both of the already suggested characters. Each player had a seat and an action representing their animal allocated to them and if they made a mistake when they were called to perform their action, along with someone else’s action for them to take their go, they became the one cell organism and had to switch seats. Everyone would eventually move along switching seats and becoming a new character. Remembering everyone’s action and character, including your own is essential, and it became a lot of fun and we had many laughs playing and acting stupid. The other games had similar rules and objectives and were equally as fun. We spent some time making a lot of noise and raising a few eyebrows from the staff working in the kitchen, but then retired after about half an hour of playing.
Shattered, probably from playing these games at lunch and having to dash round the tables to keep the pace of the game up, we all did our own thing with some of us crashing out in our rooms. Matthew had a couple of hour’s sleep in his room, whilst I lay in bed and caught up on a few moments of shut eye too. I wasn’t gone long, then rose from my bed for a bit of exercise and jumped on my bike taking a trip to town. I rode all through town along to where the market usually is based. I rode on past the market but soon turned round and headed back to the guesthouse taking an alternate route this time.
Back at the guesthouse I sat and watched whilst Matthew did some washing before dinner. After talking for a few minutes I started to feel a little less lively than usual and started to experience some pains in my stomach. They had been on and off all day but I never really thought anything of them until now. After a couple of minutes it began to make me feel uncomfortable and as a result, I wasn’t looking too forward to dinner and I wasn’t really in the mood to be very active.
After eating dinner on a slightly dickey stomach, I sat around in the guesthouse with the guys as we chatted and watched some television. I wasn’t much fun and really didn’t feel like being that sociable, so rather than sitting there and look slightly miserable, I headed to my room to sleep off what seems to be a bit of a recurring sickness. I really don’t know what causes these stomach upsets but as soon as I find out, ill surely let you know.
Tuanani x
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