Flying ants…

flying antsgathering 

The tip of an iron bar had appeared out of the anthill on the first morning of the long rain, and Boniface had uncovered it further, lifted it slightly, and propped it up where it was. It was next to a gaping tunnel as wide as a man’s leg, which bore down into the anthill. He had returned it to its original use, a use that someone had started long before houses were ever built on the edge of that part of the vlei. He had taken an old reed sleeping mat and had draped it over the semi-erect iron bar to hinder the rapid departure of flying ants. On hitting the reed mat the flying ants would lose their wings and Boniface, and his wife and children would gather writhing handfuls of wingless ants and stuff them into old 2 gallon Nestlé’s milk tins. It was his intention to sell the ants in the town.


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