Tropical Nasties III- Tunga Penetrans

This post is not for the queezy or the faint hearted. In fact- the thought still makes my stomach churn...but I feel it is part of my role to educate the rest about the joys and dangers of the 'warm heart of Africa'...although I've ben assured my little critter although discovered in Namibia started hitch-hiking from Mozambique. Im still not convinced. I've converted to covered shoes outside regardless of the heat!

So- the Chigoe Flea, Jigger Flea or 'matukenya' as it's called here, lives in sandy soil and needs a plentiful food supply to raise a family, so the female- less than 1 mm long, seeks out a host (me) and burrows under the skin and lays up to 200 eggs in a every increasing sized nest. The give away is the airhole at the top from which the hatched larvae drop out to strat the cycle all over again.

How did I know I had a jigger in my toe? well - I couldn't feel the whole corner of my toe- which I thought was a bit sus...and there was a little cysty thing that was getting bigger each day and little white- what looked like grains of sand (eggs) kept popping out the hole at the top which looked suspiciously like an airhole...
I didn't want to believe it but a guy on the bus caught me looking at my toe and exclaimed- 'oh- you've got a jigger flea!' as If I'd just won the lottery. woohoo

We were on tour in the middle of the Namibian desert at this stage, nearest private hospital several days away...so I opted for a local hospitla in a tiny little town we were passing through the next day. The Doctor was really excited. He'd heard about Jiggers- but never actually seen one...or extracted one. So they applied the 'butcher' method. Rip it open, trawl for survivors.

Pop!

The whole family...

trawling.

By this stage I was really struggling to hold my leg still and was yelling out in pain enough to deter other patients waiting outside from coming in. So they decided to give me anaesthetic. Im not sure what was more painful- the extraction or the 3 deep injections for the anaesthetic?! I grabbed my camera and took pics to distract myself from being sick...

Then she trawled some more just to make sure there were no jiggers left to set up house...and it was all over.

I walked back to the bus and went into shock afew hours later. weak as eh?! :)

they did a good job. no more jiggers.

Namibia in Pics III

Dead Vlei at Soussevlei. Once upon a time there was a big river flowing in this area- until the winds piled up the sands of the Kalahari, cutting of the river and forming the highest dune fields in the world. The air is so hot and dry that the trees trunks have almost petrified. It's hard to get perspective on the sheer size of these Vlei's hidden among the dunes- but me and about 20 other people were inthe Vlei when this photo was taken. We're jsut really, really small.... :)


Koolmanskoop was a diamond mining town opened in the early 1900's. It operated for about 50 years, housing 100 white men and thier families inthe town and 300 Africans in barracks. All the waterwas brought in from Luderitz about 50 km away. It is now a ghost town, but amazing to walk around and hear the echoes of life in the sand-drifted houses.


Koolmanskoop

Koolmanskoop

Enjoying the view of Fish River from the top of the truck

Fish River upstream of the canyon. The other side is South Africa where a heard of goats were enjoying a drink. This is also part of the Diamond 'no go' zone where Namib Diamonds and deBiers (sp?!) et al are quitely making a fortune.

Fish River Canyon is the 2nd biggest Canyon in the world. It was really hard to comprehend the size when standing on the edge- let alone in a photo?!

Enjoying the view of Fish river canyon

The giant's playground

Quiver tree's and aloes at sunset.

When I was a young warthog....

I love warthogs.

A baby seal escaping the mid-day heat under the walk way at Cape Cross- which got it's name from the several tonne rock cross erected at the site by a Portuguese explorer. The real cross is now in a museum somewhere in Portugal and 2 replicas keep the tourists happy.

The seals at Cape Cross - Skeleton Coast. The smell was unbelievable.

True desert. Hundreds of kilometers of nothing was mind boggling. So we decided to stop for a fashion shoot!

The famous 'white lady' painting of Brandburg mountain, which is - of course- neither female nor white...

A Herero woman by her trinket stall. The Herero speak the same language as the Himba, but were influenced by the missionaries long ago.

Rock carvings at Twyflfontein are connected with the ceremonies that used to take place here -and were also used to teach children about the different animals and their tracks.

the 5 'fingers' on the head of the giraffe supposedly represents the 'out of body' man-animal experience of the shamans/witchdoctors, and the elongated legs representing the sensation of rising as they united with the spiritual realm...

The view at Twyflefontein

Namibia in Pics II

One of my favourite things abotu camping is the campfire. Just beautiful on cold desert nights.


never seen one of these in Australia before!

Dead Vlei

Dune 45 at Soussevlei. What a climb!

View from the top of Dune 45. Highest Dunes in the world (up to 360m!) on one of the worlds oldest deserts

A random service station called 'Solitaire' that had a really cool old car wreck collection... and of course German beer

A car accident 50km from anywhere. They were ok- but the car wasn't.

Lunch under a tree. the only tree...

Nama kids

Im back in Malawi. Had a fantastic holiday. More pics to follow shortly, but Im not feeling up to uploading any more tonight. I think Ive got Bilharzia. not sure whats worse- the parasites tracking through my internal organs or the treatment? I'll let you know in the morning :-z more gruesome holiday parasite stories (and extraction photos) to come!

Namibia in Pics I

The open road


A couple of guys playing 'bau'-the big version :)

A Himba woman in traditional clothing.

Wilderbeast- Etosha National Park

Wet Season sunrise- Etosha National Park

A disinterested cheetah- Africat.

Stately giraffes- Etosha National Park

Hehe!

touch down

We flew over the Kalahari today- who woulda thought I'd ever do that?! from the air it looked like the nullabor- trees dotted on the baked red earth, melting into a shimmery blue haze that blended into the clear blue sky... beautiful.

It was really weird landing though- there was desert tinged in green from the recent rains on one side and mountains on the other. No sign of inhabitants or houses let alone a capital city and the next thing we're landing and all around was green grass and stunted trees. It felt eerily like coming into Albany airport and i started wondering if i was in the right place- what on earth is this country going to be like if they put their international flights down in the middle of nowhere! Not a single house or sign of infrastructure...except for a great big international airport terminal and a couple of south african Airline planes sitting incongruosly on the tarmac. I stepped out of the cold plane into the sunny warm breeze. From the ground level the horizon was nothing but a mirage shimmer. the sky was so-big.... i grinned from ear to ear. yup- im in the right place

Moz in Pics

Mozambique is cool...

I like the vibe and I like the concept of sleeping with a doona. mmm. I'd forgotten how well you can sleep when it drops below 30 deg and you're not sweating all night. When there's no glaring security lights or guards boots crunching the gravel outside your window at 12, and 2am and 4am...then the good 'ol knocking off goss session at 5am... yeah, ive slept well here.
The language course has been good too. Very technical - with heaps of unavoidable grammar jargon, but great value. After 5 months of daily language lessons and ongoing weekly ones and already operating in the language at a very crude level, its exciting to finally have so much of it explained. did you know there are about 140 ways of saying 'this, that, these and those'? Only one word for love/like though :)
Bread... Moz has great bread, which my stomach hasn't really appreciated, but my taste buds have. Salad sandwiches for lunch! what a treat.
So, the vibe...is a lot more relaxed and casual than mangochi. Not quite as traditional dress wise (ie I saw a mini skirt and almost went into shock the other day!) plus alot more people seem to speak Portuguese here than English in Mangochi. Better education system?! People are really friendly. I got bewildered at the ATM the other day trying to convert the meticals to USD to AUD to figure out how much to withdraw and when the session timed out, 6 people crammed into the booth with me to help! hehe
well my computer time is up so I'll have to tell you all about border crossings and how stunningly beautiful it is here another time...
bye!