BUGS

First of all, a warning: Don't read this if you ever want to consider me attractive ever again in your life. You've been warned.

So I’ve realized a lot of you are probably wondering what a typical day is like in PC TZ. Well, the answer is that there is none. Each day is full of incredibly random occurrences that either frustrate, amuse, or inspire. To illustrate this point, allow me to tell the tale of October 7, 2009, or as I like to call it: WAR ON SCABIES DAY. I wake up at 6 am after a fitful night due to bats squeaking and my skin itching and realize it’s time to face facts. The facts being, unfortunately for unlucky me, that I have scabies. I’ve come to this conclusion finally after almost a week of itchy red hives on my knees, waist, and elbows, countless consultations w/ my medical handbook and Where there is No Doctor, a speculative conversation with the PC Medical Officer, and several days of popping Benadryl trying to deny reality, all to no avail. Since I just had my sheets washed, I’m sure I caught this lovely gift from one of the guestis I’ve stayed at in my travels. Oh, thank you TZ. So despite my revelation, I still have to do something productive, so at 7:30 I’m off to do the last two surveys with Hadija in one of the sub-villages. It turns out to be an hour walk each way, so that’ll be my exercise for the day. I struggle to pay attention during the surveys because there’s some really cute puppies playing at the house next door and I’m so tempted to ask if I can have one. I resist the urge though and we walk back. Before going home I run some errands, ordering a sweet outfit from a tailor and buying some beans and veggies. So I get home, still procrastinating dealing with my skin problem, and start sweeping my house. And what should I sweep into my dustpan but a random half-paralyzed bat that must have fallen from my roof behind my cothes cupboard last night. So that’s gross, but I take it outside and watch my cats have fun playing with it, although apparently they don’t eat bats, or they’re full. Next thing I know Mwajuma (my school headmaster's wife...basically my BF here) comes over and I figure it’s time to do something. So I ask her if she can help me get my sheets washed again because I have “a bit of a rash.” And she freaks out, of course. They cannot have the white girl being sick you know. So for 4000 shillings she washed my blanket and all my sheets again, as if she had no other work to do, bless her heart. So since that’s happening, I figure I need to go all out TODAY and get this problem solved. So I drag my mattress, pillows, and all my couch cushions (which I stole from the junk room rather than buy my own so they could be the culprit too) into my yard to lie in the sun all day. Then I douse myself in some medicated lotion I got at the only drug store here again and start laundry duty. I already had tons of dirty clothes but now I realize that anything I’ve worn since rashville prob needs a rinse. So I put my iPod speakers on loud and start doing my least favorite chore, washing by hand with my 2 little plastic basins and bar of soap, sitting outside my back door. Even if I wanted to do everything I couldn’t because a) someone “borrowed” half my clothespins and b) I pay a pretty penny for water in this drought land and need to save some of the little I have for the rest of the week’s cooking and dishwashing. Plus the last time I had water delivered it was basically Mississippi mud so I’m not excited to pay for that again. So I wash enough clothes to last a few days (heck, this is PC, a few weeks) and am starting to get my hopes up that I will get this infestation eradicated once and for all (knock on wood.) By now it’s afternoon and all of what was going to be a productive day working on my VSA has gone to my battle plan. When I do sit down to start tabulating survey results, my friend Annette, one of the teachers who’s my age shows up at the door and says she’s come to help me “piga deki”- basically mopping the floor except no one has mops so they just bend over with a piece of fabric and wash the floor. So basically people are talking about my little problem and are probably concluding that I’m an incompetent mzungu living in filfth. So I tell her I can do it myself but she insists and basically has my whole room scrubbed in 5 minutes. Then she makes me spray everything down w/ my bug poison even though I already did. So she’s awesome. So later that day she comes back with my neighbor friend Joeli to listen to Celine Dion and the Backstreet Boys on my iPod (TZs love their 90s American pop), look at my pictures from home, and hang out. I show them the Michael Jackson People my mom sent and they marvel at the picture progression showing all the stages his face went through. We all agree that he was crazy, but still the King of Pop. So after that I bring all my stuff inside, hoping the sun has worked its magic and killed all insects, please please please. Then I realize I’m starving and I have vegetables I have to use before they go bad so I make some delicious salsa and start cooking beans to make homemade refried beans. That’s like a 2 hour process so in the meantime I finish my survey writeup and Mwajuma comes over with my sheets all clean. She basically tells me she feels horrible that I’ms ick, tell her if I need help with any other chores any time, or if I ever am too busy or don’t want to cook tell her and she’ll bring me food. “Sasa sisi ni ndugu, wewe mdogo yangu” she says. “Because we’re relatives now, you’re my little sister.” I freaking love that woman. So to end my long day of battle I eat my delicious dinner (trying not to miss Chipotle), then heat up some water and take a bucket bath by lantern light because I had to leave the lotion on for 8 hours before washing it off, according to my handy books. So finally through with my arduous day of pest control, I look up at the sky. Maybe it’s just the exhuberant hope of a scabies-free future making me delusional, but I swear the stars are more beautiful then I have ever seen anywhere. There’s no moon so I can see millions of them SUPER bright. One of the benefits of no light pollution from land. So basically, I can deal with a night sky like that for as long as I live, but I cannot be itchy like this for 2 years. So here’s hoping my efforts succeeded. And I know, TMI, I know.

EDIT: So last night I talked to my dad (a daktari) and he said he does not think it sounds like scabies, probably just an allergic reaction. and it's going away now. but i had already written this so i figured might as well post. more later.