Scabbies

So. I had an interesting experience yesterday afternoon.
Well...the experience started about a month ago with the arrival of a
ten month old named Ibrahim. When Ibrahim came he had all these weird
bumps all over him, and he scratched them all the time (when I say
everywhere.I mean EVERYWHERE. It was bizarre) Anyway at first we
thought it was just heat rash, like everyone gets here; but then it
wasn't going away, so we started putting calamine lotion on him.That
didn't help, so we took him to the doctor; and they prescribed an
antibiotic. We tried that for a week or so; it didn't help, and
then some of the other kids started getting bumps and scratching. We took him to the doctor again and they gave him a different antibiotic. Still nothing was better.
Finally, we took him to Dr. Zala (have I talked about him before? He's
an amazing man with a private pediatric clinic in a city about an hour
away). He knew right away that it was scabies!! Which is apparently very
contagious and must be treated very carefully. Scabies is a parasite
that lives in the skin. It lays eggs and then they hatch. Underneath the
skin. Its pretty gross, but not deadly. So we got the medicine, came home, and yesterday began boiling all of the babies' clothes and sheets to kill all the bugs. Then we had to bathe all the children really well and then we laid them down and smeared this medicine all over their little bodies. They SCREAMED and SCREAMED and SCREAMED. We think it might have stung them because Lynn accidentally got some on her hands and chin, and she said it was burning. Our poor babies!! We had to tape gloves on their hands because if they get it in their mouth, it would be poisonous. We have to leave the medicine on for 24 hours and then wash them and take the gloves off. So as I write this, they have been washed and the gloves are (happily) off.

Hopefully that’s the end of the scabies; but I won't lie. All last night whenever I had an itch I thought, "oh crap. I have scabies" but don't worry. I don't.
One baby, Lasane', always sucks his thumb with one hand and plays with
his ear or his belly button with the other when he's upset...and he couldn't do that
last night or today. The poor guy was miserable!! But he made it through ok. Thankfully!

Also, today we had some visitors from Missouri!! They are the youth
pastors of a small church in California, MO that my friend's grandmother
attends. So that's a little weird (it’s a small world kind of weird) it
was pleasant to have them here...they were sweet people and we had some
good conversations about missions and what they've seen since they've
been here (they are just doing a short ten day trip (they are actually
on their way home right now); but because we had out of town visitors we
got to go to the good restaurant in town and have some chicken and
fries!! Eating protein is a treat! It tastes so yummy. I never thought
I'd miss eating meat, but I guess I do.