Challenge: Ants

Dear Friend,

Each day we are met with challenges, some bigger than others. Some days our biggest challenge is getting out of bed, other days we are faced with deadlines, friendship problems, and other hurdles. Even though challenges are, well, challenging, they do provide opportunity for growth if we're open to the expansion. Like Albert Einstein said, "In the middle of growth lies opportunity." This guy knew what he was talking about. The two of us have had plenty of challenges of our own. We are installing a new post series: Challenge. We will give ourselves challenges, and then blog about the outcome (unless it is totally anti-climactic). We'll start with an unplanned challenge that happened in February


Challenge: Deal with an ant infestation at 4 AM in Palestine.
Rules: Silence. Don't wake anyone else in the house up. Kill all ants. Get rid of evidence.
Date: February 22, 2012

Over mid-winter break, the two of us went to Jerusalem with classmates and some teachers. The trip in itself was quite the roller coaster of emotions. Besides being half way around the world and away from my family and other friends, we were in one of the most dangerous places in the world. This event took place during our first morning waking up in Palestine. We had gone to bed very late the night before. The day had been so emotionally draining, as we had listened to stories from Claire Anistas, a victim of intense Israeli harassment. Her stories and wisdom were a lot to handle and we were exhausted. Also, this was the point in the trip that everyone was getting sick. We woke up at 4 AM to the call to prayer (the novelty had worn off and we just wanted to sleep). The two of us were sharing a queen sized bed and our friend Nathalia was in a smaller bed on the other side of the room. 5 minutes after being woken by chanting, I (Kylie) looked over to see Catherine leaning over the side of the bed. At first I thought she was sick, but then she jumped up on to the bed into a ninja pose and screamed.

We had an ant problem.

Our noses were running and our heads were pounding and we felt terrible, but in less than two seconds the two of us were standing on our bed and looking over as hundreds of ants crawled around on the floor and all over our stuff. Being the resourceful girls we are, we grabbed two things of mouth wash and began to pour them over the ants. Even though ants don’t usually bother us, the amount of them was insane and it was 4 AM in Palestine and we was sick and tired and delirious. Nathalia was freaking out about a huge spider in the bathroom, as well as a lack of toilet paper and it was just a bad situation all around. All we could do however was laugh. We couldn't believe the situation we were in, but it really strengthened our friendship. We took the challenge of staying quiet while being attacked by ants (at this point they were crawling all over the bed) head on and tried to deal with it with as much grace and poise as we could muster because what else could we do? Might as well find the humor and positive side in every situation because that’s more conducive to productivity and learning than being grumpy.

Lessons Learned:
-Mouthwash kills ants immediately. Note: always carry mouthwash.
-Try to find humor is situations that are not humerus at face value.
-Sickness makes everything worse.
-Positive thoughts are always helpful.
-Kylie and Catherine would make excellent CIA agents.

We hope you enjoyed challenge #1. Please comment or tell us about challenge suggestions and we promise we will try to get to them all as long as it is not too illegal or dangerous.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." -Helen Keller

Yours truly,
Kylie and Catherine