Ive been in the bush for a week now and I have officially joined the ranks of the leper colony. My skin has deteriorated into a warzone of bites, scrapes, blisters, bruises, etc. I have no less than 30 mosquito bites on each leg and at least 20 per arm. I am confident that I have managed to quench the bloodthirst of the entire mosquito population of Guinea. Unlike southern & eastern Africa, the mosquitoes here are so small they are virtually invisible. The silent unseen killer. I hear the first week is always the worst for bites, perhaps because my blood is a fresh flavor for them until they tire of it and it becomes common, no longer a delicacy. But I am in a perpetual state of discomfort. My ankles are swollen from the collective toxins of the numerous bites on each one. The ubiquitous "mut-mut" are tiny sweat flies that seek moisture and number in the millions. They buzz about our heads and seem to prefer our eyeballs but they also loiter around our ears, mouth, and nose. If you bat your eyelashes at the wrong moment, they often get caught on the surface of your eyeball and you have to pick them out. Swatting them away is futile and when they are swarming, we were head nets in the forest. They don't bite or sting but they do something far worse: annoy me into a frenzied psychosis. And because of all the fruit around here, there are bees constantly buzzing about. I haven't been gang stung yet but its only a matter of time. Helene, another French volunteer here, came back from the forest yesterday with 5 stingers on her back. These are the last days of the dry season so my creamy Califronia skin is a crusty shade of burnt toast. The air is stagnant, without respite from the wind. Is a cool breeze too much to ask for?
But my new sworn enemy, the mother of all scourges, are the blood flies (simili in French but I don't know the English; I'll have to look it up on my return). They are tiny flying insects (smaller than mosquitoes) which bite in clusters and although it's a smaller bite, they itch much more because there can be 15 bites in an area the size of a nickel. They are vectors for Onchocercosis (River Blindness). These blood flies carry and transmit the parasite responsible for the loss of sight or death of millions of Africans. Although this vicious disease does not get the notoriety that malaria and AIDS typically generate, it consumes victims with a similar appetite, but without the spotlight.
The vicious circle of skin irritation goes something like this: Begin with a standard introductory sunburn. Then, add about a 100 mosquito bites. Then, add a healthy sheen of sweat from the humid heat and a layer of dirt, grime, & dust. Next, vigorously itch the entire melange until you re-open bite wounds and they ooze pus . Then, attract dozens of flies which land directly on the open bites, and repeat Step 4. Next, lather yourself in a chemical lotion of insect repellent. Finally, since the onset of the wet season has arrived, cover yourself in synthetic rain gear. My urine is nuclear yellow due to the low water content (I sweat all of the fluid out my pores). Between sentences here, I'm raking my cankles with my fingernails in a futile attempt to placate an unrelievable itch. It's kicking my ass right now but I refuse to let it defeat me. Ahh, the pleasure & pain of life in the tropics.
Jerome is going back to France today. He has been my communication lifeline as he speaks the best English of the staff here. He is going back to teach at a university in Strasbourg. As it turns out, he has a PhD in cognitive psychology. He hasn't seemed to mind my nickname for him, Dr. J. Jerome sports a jew-fro, but not quite as high and puffy as the master baller of windmill dunk fame.
There are nine keepers here, all locals from W. Africa. Eight of them are from Guinea and although our project is located in Upper Guinea where Malinke (Mandingo) is the dominant tribe, most of the keepers are actually from the Fula (Peul) tribe. The other two major ethnicities here are the Susu, which are coastal people, and the Forest People, a collection of several tribes in the verdant southeast of the country, where the only elephant population resides. Ibrahim (the only non-Guinean) is a refugee from the 1998 war in neighboring Sierra Leone. Yesterday, while walking in the forest here with 8 chimps, he told me his story. Rebels captured him and he was forced to work for them and fight for their cause (Freedom Fighters trying to overthrow the govt). No pay, one bowl of rice per day. The rebels killed his baby sister, in front of him. One day, after being ordered to go fetch water in the forest, he escaped. He fled into the jungle and hid there for two days, without food or water. He was eventually picked up by UNICEF aid workers and taken to their base camp where they nursed him back to health. They offered him refugee status and a plane ticket to America but he declined because his mother would think he was dead. His father was in a refugee camp but he didn't know where. The next day a friend of his came to him with news of the whereabouts of his parents. His mother had fled to Guinea but his father was in a camp in Sierra Leone. He sent his friend a written note to pass to his father that he would emigrate to the USA. That evening he returned to the UNICEF camp to accept their generous offer but it was too late. Their camp had come under attack and they closed up their operation and left the country. With few options available, he decided his home country was too dangerous and emigrated to Guinea to find his mother.
Ibrahim seems to have taken a special interest in me. He is extremely friendly, always smiling, illiterate, pleasant, and speaks a broken Creole English. He loves all things American and wears a Barack Obama belt buckle. He tells me that it has taken ten years for the nightmares to stop. He would wake up in a cold sweat, screaming. At times, it's tough to spend time with him because I feel an inexplicable guilt creeping up on me. Had it not been for the demand in my country for diamonds, perhaps his family would not have been brutally torn from him. But he wears his pain silently, never exposing its raw pulp. Instead, his hopeful spirit shines with dreams of coming to America. Here is an excerpt of his exact words: "Mr. Michael, I want come in USA and work for you. I will be your driver and body guide. People can come to me and ask to speak with you. I will say them, 'Wait here, I check for you. No, my boss man cannot see you now, he is busy, go away'. Then, I will tell them to try again tomorrow for visit Mr. Michael."
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