Rainbow Ants in the Rainbow Nation

South Africa is called the Rainbow Nation, due to its many cultures and skin colours. I have rainbow ants in my house to prove it.

As I mentioned, my house has been taken over by ants (the exterminator can't come until Monday, by the way... five more days!). I still can't figure out where they're coming from, but Dan noticed that they were eating my food colouring. What's funny is that every time we squished an ant they left a little rainbow mark - blue, green, red or yellow. And every time I squished one, five more appeared.

We had a guest come over for dinner, an electrical engineer/pastor from Zambia whose wife is the Speaker of the National Assembly for the Zambian government. And here I was in the kitchen frantically killing ants, leaving little rainbow spots all over the place while my stew was burning on the stove! I was so embarrassed.

I suppose it's funny, but what came to my mind was a conference I attended years ago in which a woman from Russia spoke on hospitality. She said that we Americans are really terrible at practicing hospitality because we care too much about how our homes look and not enough about people. We think everything has to be just right before we will invite someone into our home. I suppose she was right, although I know many Americans who have the gift of hospitality. In any case, I decided to swallow my pride and serve the burnt stew to my guest while enjoying my new....umm.... kitchen decor. And you know what? I had a lovely evening!

Yup, it's good to be home...