Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Damn the Mosquitoes! Damn All the Mosquitoes!

Today the electricity went out (it goes out every day for about an hour right after sundown) and I was so tired so I thought, Hmmm, I'll take advantage of the darkness and take a nap. I didn't want to put up the mosquito net because if I put it up too early, it's pretty inevitable that one or two nasty little mosquitoes will sneak in and torment me all night. So I covered myself in a thin blanket (sort of torcherous because it's really hot and there was no fan because of the current outage) and I wrapped my orna (the useless third piece of the traditional "three piece" outfits that is used to conceal the fact that I have breasts from the men of this country) around my head, leaving my mouth and nose exposed so I could breathe. It worked for about 5 minutes, until all of a sudden I realized that I was being bitten on my lower lip. Damn those mosquitoes! Damn them!
You know those commercials for Deep Woods Off! Spray where you can hear the annoying hum of mosquitoes in the background? Well, it's really like that here. If you tune out the car horns, the rickshaw wallah bells, the people hacking up loogies, the babies crying, and the men yelling "Coy mach", you can hear a high pitched hum - the song of thousands of mosquitoes just waiting for that naked foot to stop moving so they can perch and inject thier poison. And what poison it is, lethally strong - one drop and my skin welts up like I've been caned. Hydrocortizone does NOTHING. The only hope is to sit in agony and try not to scratch-rub-poke-touch the area until the intensity subsides and you can sortof forget about it - until the next bite comes along. Sigh. Inhaling lethal pesticides isn't that bad, is it?

No comments: