true life planet

Okay, so it seems as though my battle with creepy crawlies is never ending here.

Just as I think I´ve gotten rid of one parasite living off me, I discover I have another one!

This last week I was itching my head alot. it was bugging me all the time. I finally sat down with a mirror and a comb to see what was going on on my poor head..and lo and behold..lice.

Unfortunately, there is no lice shampoo available in the Comarca. In fact the solution seems to be simply getting one´s hair wet everyday(most people don´t have shampoo) and most people think this kills whatever is living on your head-and body.

Not true, not true. I can attest to this, having religiously made my pilgrimage to the river for a daily fully clothed bath for many months now.

So, after a week of going insane with them pestering me, I have made the trek to David to buy many bottles of shamppo to kill them off. I am  accompanied by the other volunteer, Carolin, a bright young woman from Germany, who sadly also has many friends on her head.

We visited a few pharmacies looking for something effective for lice, and surprisingly were offered many curatives that contained pretty much nothing to kill lice-like lemon juice…or another one that seemed to have the exact ingredients of milk of magnesium. We finally found something strong, with the important ingredient of piperonil, and bought all the bottles they had. The plan is to wash our hair and everything we own at one time. And then do it again. And again.

It´s not surprising we have lice. People have no showers, they bathe with a bucket, or perhaps in the river. Many times people don´t bathe for some time-and we work closely with those people. People also live in very close quarters with their animals, such as chickens, dogs, and pigs, all who have lice.

So, don´t worry, folks at home. I will be vigilant about shampooing my hair often with the stuff-and, have invited myself to a local nun´s house the night before I leave to go home with the express purpose of washing everything I own and bathing in hot water. I promise to not have lice. Although what else I may have I cannot say…(joke!)

Meanwhile, the packing list grows for the next leg of the journey: lice shampoo and a lice comb are definitely coming with me for the rest of this trip!

gigi

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 3:16 pm and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.