Cassie

We lost Cassie today - we will miss her more than she could ever know. She loved vanilla wafers, Joe, Lesley and Andy. Oh yeah and popcorn!

I don't have a picture of Cassie and Lesley…maybe Lesley does!

The Aftermath

I've been home from Bogota for a week now…unfortunately I have been sick as all get out for a week. Being sick isn't something I do well - but this time I managed to get it all right. Started slow - a little cough/runny nose on Saturday, moving to a fever on Sunday and then by Monday- all hell broke lose. I played tennis Sunday morning - played badly then got in the pool. Probably didn't help my sickness too much.

Spent Sunday lazing around - achy, nasty…Tim was home briefly Sunday. Monday I went to the pool - achy body and all - it was freezing, but felt good. Came home crashed. By Tuesday I was coughing so bad my entire body hurt - my head, my ribs - everything.

On the way home from the pool Wednesday morning I stopped at the grocery store and talked to the pharmacist - he fixed me up with Mucinex DM and an antihistamine. I was also determined to get something to eat - went to my favorite soup/sandwich place all the way down in Buckhead - Souper Jennys - and inhaled a bowl of gazpacho - it was sooo good - just spicy enough, cold. Homemade pitas with sprouts and homemade hummus.

On the way home from lunch, after the 7th hour of straight unproductive coughing, I stopped at CVS and purchased the strongest over the counter cough suppressant available. Sat in the parking lot there and took the stuff. My daughter thought I might have an issue!

Homemade remedies were absolutely the freaking best though. Since I blame my disease on travels to South America, my friend recommended a South American remedy: rum, honey and lemon juice. So, the rum was 27 year old Guatemalan rum, the honey was wildflower and the lemon fresh squeezed. The first night my first honey/lemon:rum proportions were off - required more rum. Second night I got the proportions exactly right, which were, of course based on the more rum to honey/lemon measurements…I wanted more. Didn't do it, of course but it was sure good. Other remedy I used was a fabulous hibiscus tea, I was first served at the USAID office in Bogota. Soooooo good.

Its now Friday - I'm feeling 100% better - still coughing, but not nearly so bad. Tim is sick!

Fleas

This time it was the fleas. More specifically, las picaduras de pulgas - flea bites. And, I know my translation is probably not accurate. But I wanted to make sure that I didn't ever forget that phrase. Flea bites!

Yo Mujer has a flea infestation in the residencia. They are in the mattresses, in the bed linens, biting the people who live there. Using the term bite here is relative - it's more like an all out attack, a complete battalion assault.

When I first saw Moise (he's two years old) he was crying and scratching, holding his arms out to his Mom. I don't know if he was telling her he was hurting or if he wanted her to scratch his arms but she pulled the long sleeves of his jacket down over his arms and rubbed them. I asked what was wrong. She said pulgas. (My Spanish is limited and I didn't really know what pulgas were, so I found Carlos, he explained that they were flea bites.) Then she pulled up the sleeves of his jacket, the legs of his pants and showed me the bites, hundreds of them, all over this little guy.

Then she raised the back of her shirt and showed me her bites. Again, hundreds…all over her. Amelia came over to show me her bites - hundreds - all over her arms, her back, her legs. Some of the bites had been scratched so much that they were open sores. Some had become infected. Slowly other women and children came over to show me how they had been bitten. Then they told me that the pulgas were in their beds, and everywhere, that there were so many they were picking them up off the beds and killing them with their finger nails.

This was so disturbing to me - completely devastating. Poor people forced away from their homes, living in a place they don't know, can't afford, with no food, no medicine, no schools - and then fleas.

I didn't know what to do or say! Completely at a loss.

My mind went into overdrive. How would I handle this if I were at home? What would I do?The next day I went to the drogueria/farmacia in Sierra Morena (the neighborhood of Ciudad Bolivar) where we are working and asked for an antibiotic creme. There was none. So, forget about stopping infections. There was Caladryl. I bought two bottles and took it out to Yo Mujer.

When we arrived Moise, obviously becoming a little more comfortable with the strangers who had come to his temporary home, came up to me, crying as he pulled up the sleeves of his jacket. I gave the lotion to one of his aunts for her to put on his arms - I wasn't sure he would trust me enough. She rubbed the lotion on his little arms, pulled his sleeves down. For a while he stopped crying, scratching. I tried to convince some of the others to use the lotion, a few did, a few were not willing to try it.

On the way home we stopped at Exito (the WalMart of Bogota) for some things, among them antibiotic cream, perhaps a different type of anti-itching creme and maybe a bug bomb or spray to use in the residence. There was none. Nothing at all that I could find to eliminate the fleas in the house. Nothing I could do to make Moise's bites go away and to prevent them from returning. Nothing.

That sense of helplessness is something I don't understand. Why is it that people who have already experienced such tragedy and such devastation must be assaulted again? When I even see an ant in my house, I call the bug guy and he comes over and takes care of it. My dog doesn't have fleas because I have her treated at the vet. I have money for solutions, Moise and his family don't.

The images of the faces of these children and their bodies covered with bites will stay with me for a long time. I am still devastated.

Some of the bites