I can’t help it. Something in my nature compels me to write
a blog post of this ilk. Honestly, part of me just gets a kick out of it, but
aside from my own fascination with the “gross” I feel like I wouldn’t be giving
you all an accurate picture of my life in Africa if I didn’t share some of the
ew, the yuck, the oh-dear-lord, to which I have become so accustomed. I don’t
want to feed too much into the stereotype of the Dark Continent, crawling with huge bugs, infested with parasites
waiting to eat you alive! Most of the time my life isn’t gross at all, but the
truth is that Africa does have some big bugs and some nasty parasites and I am
here to tell you about them. So if the title of this post was not enough of a
warning and this preamble hasn’t clued you in, prepare yourself now for the gross out…
I think I have a higher than average tolerance for most
things gross, but there were times during Pre-Service training (PST) that I got
a case of the heebie-jeebies. Who could blame me when the possible afflictions
covered in our “staying healthy in Senegal” sessions had names like creeping eruption and blister beetle (so named because it secretes a chemical that
blisters the skin; if not popped under water the blisters release more of this
chemical and create still more blisters)? What I feared most by the end of PST
though was the mango fly, so of course it was the first really gross parasite I
encountered.
In between rattling our PST cages with their gross-out
stories (“blister beetle on her neck!” “staph in my armpit!”) older volunteers
reassured us that none of these things are really as bad as they sound during
training. It was hard to believe at first – I kept thinking, “if I get a mango
fly I’m going home,” knowing I probably wouldn’t – but it has proved true, and
nothing I’ve seen has been gross enough to send me home. When I learned after a
few weeks in village that puppies are particularly susceptible to mango fly
infestations I had a moment of extreme disgust and then actually got a sort of
sick satisfaction from popping them out of Tanko’s body, like fat squirming
pimples, the biggest white-head you’ve ever seen, come to life! I did feel
really bad for the little guy obviously; they were all over him and in
proportion to his body size each one would be, at best, like popping a grub the
size of a pill bottle out of your thigh. In fact, one of the grossest things I
have ever seen in my life was a kid with a mango fly larva in his thigh. He had
been limping around the compound for a couple days, because although they don’t
get to be the size of a pill bottle, they can get in there pretty deep and
cause a lot of pain and swelling. He came and sat down on the bamboo bench and
then suddenly his mom, who was sitting next to him, reached over, grabbed his
thigh with both hands and squeezed as hard as she could, with the predictable
gory results. I still breath a big Alhamdulilah that I never had one myself.
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| First rainy season staph infection (near my Achilles) |
I have had my share of gross infections though. My first
rainy season I had a staph infection that looked like a gunshot wound and a
case of zombie rash. I’m not sure who coined this term, but half my training
class had a mysterious scaly rash that first year (maybe caused by an insect
secretion?) that came to be known as “zombie rash” among volunteers. Last year I
had another mild case of zombie rash in almost exactly the same place and
almost exactly the same time of year, plus two more staph infections, one in an
unmentionable and very painful spot. That’s to say nothing of the various
invisible, but nonetheless gross internal infections I’ve had, for which I am
thankful for the wonder drug that is Cipro, or what my friend Ben once referred
to as “an atomic bomb for your gut.”
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| Sarah's zombie rash |
So far this rainy season has been smooth sailing, and I hope
I don’t jinx myself by saying so. I am generally healthier, better nourished
and stronger than I was last year and I would hope that by this point my body
is more accustomed to the local germ populations and able to resist more of
that gross stuff. But even if it’s not, I’m pretty confident that between my
own thick skin and the miracles of modern medicine I can stand up to just about
any parasite out there.
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| This started as an ordinary burn and an ordinary blister, then it popped, got infected and became this! |
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