Yes this is the brutal reality of living in the jungle. My legs are covered with mosquito and other insect bites, 136 and counting, and this is only the region from my calves down. Dont even get me started about the itching. I am trying really hard not to use repellent because 2 years with Deet soaking into your skin cant be good for you. So, I am trying really hard to get used to it. Or if anyone comes to visit and knows some really good natural remedy and is able to get it down to me please let me know.
So life is going well here but it is definitely hard work. Everything is hard work, from buying food and supplies, transporting food and supplies, cooking, cleaning, washing. All of it is all manual work and extremely exhausting. Free time is very rare here. However, little by little I am figuring out life and little by little things are getting less overwhelming. The same goes with the work, it is hard to know what to start on since there is so much that needs help. For example, they just promised a group the use of the pool, however, it has been out of order for 2 years now, has a hole, is super dirty and it is the dry season and I have no idea how we are going to fill it, nonetheless find chemicals to treat it. I told them this and advised them against offering it, but they did anyway saying it is possible to fix it in 2 days and find the water to fill it. Vamos a ver...what a disaster in the making. This is what I am up against. They just dont think about this stuff ahead of time or think about who is going to do the work and all that. I have to teach them in business that you cant offer what you dont have.
I start teaching English here tomorrow and that will be fun. I am teaching at the basico level, but this includes kids from age 12 to 20. They know some words in english but tomorrow I am going to evaluate where they are and where to go from here.
I went to another community yesterday to play soccer with the girls team and we tied. We lost in the kick off at the end but it was fun to visit the other community and play with the team. However, the team uniforms are another story. They are all smaller in size here and only had shorts and jersey in 1 size, that size small. Yikes! Good thing they are used to seeing everything very small here as I barely fit into the shorts and top, it was sooo tight!
Well, I am off to practice futbol with the team now!
Cheers,
Tara
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Hola Tara,
ReplyDeleteYou're right to want to avoid putting deet on your skin -- especially for years at a time -- but deet is, in my long & varied experience, the only thing that will work. You need to put it on clothes though. Socks with deet on the outside or pants are what you need. In the DR shorts just weren't worn by adults no matter how hot it got so it was easier to douse shoes & socks & pants legs with deet.
I assume you have a mosquito net around your bed? You also want to avoid using soaps, lotions, shampoos that have perfume in them. As you no doubt know, below about 1500 meters there is risk of malaria. A friend in the DR got it as he chose not to take his anti-malarial meds . . . and it was not pretty. So, you need to come up with ways to reduce getting bitten. IMHO
Life is hard work (especially)for those living in the "3rd world"! Even the simplest, most common, everyday things are hard work: "All of it is all manual work and extremely exhausting. Free time is very rare here." That is an important insight that should inform your actions from here on forward. But it will, as you also observe "get less overwhelming". You will get your daily routine "sorted" sooner thab you think!
All the best, Jim