Monday, March 24, 2008

Muito Muito Mosquitos

Or in English, that would be: Many Many Mosquitos.

Last week we were in Belem, which is at the mouth of the Amazon, and spent 2 weeks visiting a church there. We stayed on a big plot of land that the church owns and each of the pastors live in their own house there. They even have a guest house, which we were blessed to stay in. (Even though most of the time we only had cold water to shower with.)



Here is a pic of a soccer game in progress and a couple of the houses on the land.


It is very hot and humid in Belem, which is the perfect breading ground for mosquitos and various other bugs that like to bite. By 5 PM we had to shut all doors and windows to keep the bugs out, then turned on the air conditioning. The 1st week I was there, I didn't have any bites at all. Camden was getting some, so I made sure to rub as much bug repellent on him as possible.

Towards the end of the 2nd week, some bites started showing up. I'm from the land of big mosquitos in North Dakota, so I'm used to bites. And usually you feel when they bite. But the mosquitos that were biting me were of the VERY tiny kind, that you can't even see. Well, by the time we left I had so many bites all over me, it was crazy! I counted on ONE leg, knee down, more then 50 BITES! Just on ONE LEG, KNEE DOWN!!!!!!!!!! Whenever someone sees my arms and legs they just shudder.....so do I! (It takes about 10 minutes just to find them all and put anti-itch cream on them.)

After about a week, they are beginning to fade, but still occasionally itch. This pic isn't very good, but hopefully you can see all of the bites. The ones on my feet were the worst!



So, for future reference, if you travel to Belem, or the northern part of Brazil, NEVER GO WITHOUT MOSQUITO SPRAY!!!!!

1 comment:

Susan said...

Oh man, and I was crying about the mosquitoes in Germany. Now I am ashamed! Poor girl!!!