Lice and Mosquito Nets

We arrived safely back to New Zealand yesterday. Two more teams from our school arrived as well, so we all travelled back to Oak Ridge on a chartered bus. I can hear the screaming outside now of the Argentina team arriving to the base! Everyone that we haven't seen in two months looks different. Some girls chopped off their hair because they got lice in Vanuatu. That's how one of the children's homes that we stayed at dealt with lice, too. One girl on our team got lice but kept her hair and treated it with chemicals. The next girl who got lice was my roommate.

This particular week, BearHunter and I were in separate rooms. I was on the floor with all the girls and our wall to wall mattressees and mosquito nets. So I was concerned to learn that lice were living two feet from my head. But actually I had set up my head at the oppositie end of the bed, so I didn't freak out. And I never got lice! It's common among the children that come to the children's home to have skin problems, lice, etc. At the home they get these problems treated and get well fed. Visting doctors can tell the difference between the children who have been there awhile and the new ones.

We were awakened every morning around 5 or 5:30am to hear hundreds of kids singing at morning devotions. Then they scurry off to do chores before breakfast. Some kids came to sweep and do medical clinic for their chore. Teenage girls have been trained by visiting nurses and doctors to take care of the other kids. So there's a line up outside the "clinic" around 5:30am. The clinic is also the bunkroom for extra guests like us. The married couples and single guy were put here in bunks. This clinic adjoins the guests' shower/toilet stalls. So there's always traffic coming through, besides curious eyes of children peering in the windows and doors. There didn't seem to be any reason to stay there, so I, Calalily, decided to room with the single girls for a change. I left BearHunter with the other guy and married couple. That was fun. The girls stayed up late at night, shaking our mosquito nets with laughter.