Friday, August 5, 2005

Wash With Caution

I'm relaying this story knowing that, after telling it, no one is ever going to visit me here ;)

Annie was in DRC with Debby last week, in Bukavu. They did a little bit of wash while they were there, and Annie hung up her pants outside on the deck for a few hours to dry.

About 3 days ago, she had a horrible mosquito bite on her abdomen. It was super itchy, and pretty big. She thought she'd over-itched it in her sleep, because a day went by and it was getting bigger, and redder and it hurt a little. She thought it might be infected.

Yesterday, it continued to grow. I offered some antibacterial stuff to put on it, but she thought it was probably healing.

Last night, she thought it looked a little pussy, so she squeezed it an a big tube of pus came out. 

She looked at it by candlelight on her finger, and realized...

... it was wriggling.

She ran into Debby, who nonchalantly said "Oh, it's a mango fly maggot."

***********

Apparently, mango flies are prevalent in the DRC, but not so at all here (thank god)

They love wet clothes, and they lay their eggs. The eggs come alive when they come in contact with warmth (i.e. human flesh) and they burrow into the warmth and gestate. 

Once they're ready, they emerge from your skin. Annie was lucky to have squeezed one out prematurely.

I personally thought it was sort of cool. But I can only imagine the comments I'll get after my first bug post!

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