The sun had already set, the light turning fast from dark orange to purple to gray when I pitched the tent by the roadside. In the last breaths of light, I scraped together a few sticks for firewood.

It was the only place I’d found, full of shrubs and with just a thin wall of bushes separating me from the highway. For a night it would do. A corn field stood further down the small gravel road and a cluster of trees formed a circle, almost like a room, big enough to hide my bike and carriage from catching an eye. Normally I would have liked to hide more, get further from the road, but I’d learned that nobody really walks outside after dark. I should be fine until morning.

The embers were dying down into a dim red glow and my tea was almost finished. Everything was pitch black around me in the new moon when I heard footsteps. He had no torch. Pass by on the road, pass by on the road, I thought and held my breath. But the footsteps approached, turned into the side road and I knew that if I would not make myself known he would probably fall right over me.
“Good evening,” I raised my voice. The steps stopped.
“Hello?” A man’s voice.
“How are you?” Manners, formality, while I fumbled for my headlight. Don’t be scared. By now he should see the embers from my dying camp fire.

He stayed silent. I found my torch and lit it, shone it down between us. He approached, then sat down next to me.
“Where you come from?” he asked.
“Freetown,” I said, though I knew what he meant. “And you?” He indicated down the road.
“From the village?” I asked. He hummed.
“Where are you going?”
“Kenema,” I replied.
“You are alone?”
“Noo, no,” I said. He paused.
“Are you married?”
“Yes,” I said. Of course I was. “And you? Are you married?”
“Yes,” he said. “Where is your husband?”
“In Kenema.”
“You travel together?”
“Yes, yes,” I said. “Just today he had to go ahead.” I laughed a little. Like it was the most natural thing and what a bummer, that today of all days my travel-companion husband had to leave me behind. But he was waiting for me, yes, nearby even.
“You German?”
“Noo,” I said. I fastened the torch on my head and got up, walked up to the bicycle in the trees and locked it. Hoped the tree-room wasn’t this man’s usual bedroom. He was quiet, maybe stunned to find somebody like me here, unsure what to do. I did not want him to get any ideas.
“OK, good-night,” I said, though I would have liked to stay and look at the clear sky for longer. But not with him here.

I rolled up my sleeping mat, took my cup and made for the tent. He got up, too. I stepped into the bushes. He followed. I bent down to unzip my tent and he bent down too, craned his neck and followed the light to look inside. I stopped. Straightened my back and faced him.
“Here is not for you,” I said. He was about my height, thin.
“OK,” he mumbled. I stood facing him until he turned and left. Then unzipped the tent, threw in the things and myself last and closed the flap. Please make me wake if he tries anything, I prayed. Make my ears sharp, make my sleep light. I listened to him move around nearby, lay awake until I could hear him snore. Then I fell asleep too.

I woke. It took me seconds to remember. It was dark all around and I needed to pee. I tried to listen for the snoring but there was another sound. Rain. Dammit, I thought. Didn’t want to get out of the tent and get wet. It also meant I couldn’t touch the tent fabric; this cheap-ass “water proof” crap. At least I had propped my things up from the tent floor just out of habit.

The rain sounded light, yet dense. The fact that it was Harmattan season, the driest month of the year, didn’t occur to me.

I braced myself, unzipped the flap, crouched out and stumbled into the dark just a few meters away into the bushes, almost falling over the vines and branches under my feet. Pulled down my shorts and was just about to squat when I jumped up in panic. They were crawling on me, already up to my knees. I felt their bites on my feet, my calves, small bodies moving, covering my skin, up almost on my thighs. I held back a scream, ran back though the shrubs with arms stretched in front, stumbled over the tent line, threw myself towards where I thought the road was, slapping, brushing at my legs while their bites still picked angry stings into my skin. My feet hit the gravel, the sharp rocks into my soles but I didn’t stop, skipped over a few more meters until I was sure it was clear before I stood to wipe the ants off my legs. What the fuck?!

What the actual fuck?

I went a few meters down the road and squatted down to pee. My feet itched where the ants had bit. That’s when I noticed that it wasn’t raining.

Did I close the tent door? Did I pull out the line when I stumbled on it before? I peered down the place where I thought my tent was. Why did I leave the torch in the tent? I could hear the brushing, rain-like sound from here: millions of ant feet moving in a stream, collectively marching through the bushes. I stood, pulled my shorts up and took a deep breath. Then flung myself, my naked feet, back into the shrubs. Took leaps, as big as I could. Felt them on me again, their bodies quick and chaotic. My hands found the plastic, still standing, zipper down. Zip up, inside, zip down. Pulled the zipper as far down as I could. Tapped my feet with my hands, then tapped around the tent floor until I felt the elastic of the torch. I lit it, aimed it on the floor, up and around. They weren’t there. But they were all around me; in my plastic bubble I could hear them passing on the tent roof, beneath the floor and on the walls.

I remembered the one hole in the floor and lifted my jacket. The hole was as big as my thumbnail and in the light of the torch I saw only a black moving mass beneath it. A few had come up and were circling the edges. Nope. I put back my rain jacket over the hole, reached for my water bottle and pressed it down on top. A few ants were still running in the corners of the tent but there should be no other way for them to get inside. Could they eat their way inside? I turned on my phone and checked the time; 03.14. Should I use my last percent to google “African ants poisonous”?

Should I sleep outside?

Then I remembered the man. I listened for his snoring but heard nothing. Finally I lay down again, turned off the torch and blinked up into the darkness. All around me was the brushing sound of the ant stream. And me: inside a little plastic bubble in this black crawling river. Laying on the ground I could feel them. How their bodies brushed against the tent floor, how they moved over the leaves and sticks and tiny rocks underneath the vegetation; millions, millions moving. They must pass at some point. I tried to calm myself. Please, I thought again. If they come inside, make it so I wake up.

The easy light of dawn awoke me. I was still on my back, blinking up at the military-patches of the tent. It was quiet. I moved my head to look around, then slowly made to sit. I reached for the zipper. A lone ant panicked in circles in the corner. I opened the door, took my slippers and quickly ducked out. Closed the zipper before I hurried out of the bushes, but there was no need. The ants were gone. As I turned to look around, so was the man. My bike was still there, everything as I had left it. My legs and feet had no traces of the bites. The corn field swayed in the new morning light.

I turned on my phone and data, folded out the solar panel with toothbrush in my mouth. A notification caught my attention and I opened a message from Lucas; I had put him in touch with my hosts in Freetown and he should have arrived last night. The message was sent at 02:55:

Inga!!!!!!!!!!the bed is full of ticks. They ate
me!!!!!!!!!

Ah, yes. I had forgotten to tell him about the bedbugs.

…

(This story told in pictures.)