Good News and Bug News

give these boys a safe place to poop!

Good news first: my latrine building grant was approved yesterday! The wonderful organization Water Charity has fronted the money so that construction can begin ASAP. The latrine project is totally community-driven and will hopefully end open defecation in the village - aka everyone will have somewhere to poop inside their own homes. Just in time for the holidays - it's the most wonderful time of the year! You can help out here!

this is NOT the scorpion that stung me (phew)

Bug news second: I got stung by a scorpion yesterday! Ouch! I was walking (read: dancing barefoot) in my backyard when a red-hot pain struck my big toe. I looked down to see... nothing in the sand and ran to wash the sand off, revealing ... nothing on my foot. Meanwhile, my toe is swelling and pain is moving through the arch of my foot, down to each of my toes, and I'm starting to panic thinking of all the possible things that could've sunk their teeth into me. While I'm on the phone with the doctor the pain moves from my foot through my right leg and into my back and I start thinking very sinister and panicky thoughts.

Thankfully my sitemate and personal hero came to pick me up and calm me down and after a while we figured it was just a scorpion bite and treated it with ice, benadryl, and acetaminophen accordingly. It's healing beautifully. The scorpion encounter has been added to the ever-growing list of injuries, infestations, and infections I've seen in Senegal due to my exposure to bugs. In fact, during my first months here I contracted so many weird "bug diseases" that my peers happily and easily elected my Peace Corps memoir title: A Bug's Life.

I've debated for a long time whether or not to share my health issues with you, my blog audience. On the one hand, I find it incredibly interesting and sort of hysterical in a sad way. On the other hand, publicizing private health issues is a classic hallmark of a volunteer who has been in country too long and completely forgotten which boundaries should and should not be crossed. My compromise is to make a list and let any interested parties investigate on their own.

Here goes nothing!

During my training months, I was blessed with: cutaneous larva migrans (aka slithering disaster), head lice (thanks host family!), dermaophytosis (ringworm), bed bugs (they stayed for a quick four months), and now my scorpion sting. BUT far and away, my most interesting and most horrifying encounter with a bug was with Maggie, my mango fly. If you dare, skip down to the treatment section on the wikipedia page and imagine dealing with that, alone, your first week in Peace Corps. And if you're not totally grossed out by mango flies, check these cupcakes out. Yes, that's just what little Maggie, my maggot, looked like!