There is a delightful creature here in Tanzania that makes one of the simplest tasks- doing laundry- quite the adventure.  Called the mango fly, or sometimes the tumba or putzi fly, it likes to lay its eggs in wet laundry hanging out to dry.  Once put on, the eggs in the clothing hatch and the larvae burrow into the wearer’s skin, form itchy painful bumps while they incubate, and eventually erupt from the skin like your worst childhood nightmare.  Apparently you know that it’s one of these charming little monsters because you can see the little black dot of the larvae’s eye under the skin and a tiny hole through which it breathes.  Go ahead; you know you want to Google it.

I have been given numerous pieces of information and advice- of varying degrees of usefulness- on how to avoid this charming little hiccup of an infestation:  Flies only lay eggs in clothes that are laid out on the grass to dry, not in those on the line (false).  Only hang your clothes up during the day because the flies are dormant during nighttime (false).  It’s fine to hang your clothes outside as long as you don’t wear them for two days afterwards because the eggs hatch within two days (partly false).   As long as you iron your clothes before you wear them to kill all of the eggs, you won’t have problems (true, but less useful if you do not own an iron).

If, however, you find yourself in the unenviable situation of playing host, there are a few options open to you.  Cover the air hole of the larvae with one of any number of substances- clear nail polish, Vaseline, lip balm, thick lotion; all have been suggested.  This causes the larvae to come up to the surface to try to breathe, at which point you can grab it with a tweezers and pull it out (a painful process).  Or they may suffocate and then you can *pop* them out (also uncomfortable).  Here is the problem though…they incubate at different rates, so while you may be able to do this with one, you may have to wait days while you watch for the other larvae to be ready.  You can also go in after it and try to excise it from your skin.  Or you can let it run through its life cycle and erupt on its own.  However, since each of these options still involves a small worm making its way from under my skin to its surface, you can understand that I have been eager to avoid any acquaintance, however passing, with the critters.  I therefore choose to wash all of my laundry in the sink and hang it up to dry in my room.

Until this week, that is.  I was trying to frantically pack up my room for the big move to Ifakara, my field site.  I had a couple of things that desperately needed to be washed, but the only way they were going to dry fast enough for me to finish packing was if I hung them outside.  So I did.  Not thinking, two days later I wore one of them.  Didn’t even cross my mind until last night…when I noticed a weird itchy red bump on my knee.

I should backtrack a bit.  Yesterday was the day of the move.  Boarding the bus at 6:45am, we sat at the bus station until 9am before finally pulling out on the road to Ifakara.  I had last made this journey in 2011 and I remember as a 10 hour long arduous nightmare with no bathroom breaks.  Fortunately this time I was leaving from Morogoro rather than Dar, which shaves 3-4 hours off the trip.  Unfortunately, my memory of no bathroom breaks appeared to be accurate.  My solution was to eat and drink nothing from the time I woke up to the time I arrived in Ifakara nearly eleven hours later.

We left Morogoro and headed west on the Dar road.  As I watched the mountains surrounding the town fall behind I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad, despite my new adventure.  I had really fallen a little in love with Morogoro while I lived there and felt I had made a wonderful group of friends.  It seemed a bit cruel that I had to leave again so soon after returning from the States and that after spending three months  in one social circle, I had to start again in a new place.  But that conflicted with my other major feeling, which was of excitement.  I love to travel and I love to go somewhere new.  Even more importantly, I was finally going to be able to start my research, the culmination of years of work to this point.

The trip was long and fairly uneventful.  The scenery was beautiful in many places because you pass through Mikumi National Park and by the Udzungwa Mountains on the way.  I had a front row seat on the bus, and so was able to look out the large windshield and had a bit more leg room than usual.  In Mikumi, I saw the same baboons, gazelles, and giraffes as usual (yes, I have progressed to the point where seeing giraffes is now like seeing deer in the US), but also this time caught a glimpse of zebras and wildebeasts.  Unfortunately we were moving too quickly for pictures, so those will have to wait until my safari next weekend.  The mountains were also beautiful, and I’m hoping to have a chance to explore them while I’m in Ifakara.

I pulled into Ifakara around three in the afternoon and found a taxi to take me to the guest house the professor I am working with suggested.  It is nothing fancy but it was clean and had a ceiling fan and I plan to only be here a couple days or so.  Of course the shower doesn’t work, so I am using a small spigot a foot and a half off the ground for washing.  Still, overall happy.

Except for the red, itchy bump that I noticed on my knee as I was getting ready for bed last night.  Usually I would assume mosquito bite, but this didn’t look like the typical bite and had what looked like a white patch forming on its head.  Now if you know me at all, you know that I am often a bit obsessive about health issues, and it is not unusual for me to diagnose myself with the help of my dangerous amount of health knowledge and my intimate relationship with WebMD.  I fired up the computer and began comparing pictures of mango fly bites with my knee.  They looked similar.  I poked, I prodded.  I went to bed and tried to sleep, but every hour or so, I would turn on my flashlight and take another look.  The white part was getting larger, and a black speck appeared in the middle of it.  “Here we go,” “I thought, “my first time.”  Was there a breathing hole?  Maybe?  Sometimes it looked like it.  Sometimes not.  I poked and prodded some more.  I covered it repeatedly in Vaseline.  I don’t know why I thought it would be better to see the worm come out than to have it come out in my sleep if it chose to do so, but what can I say, I have a morbid curiosity.  The white part bulged and the black speck appeared closer to the surface.  I couldn’t sleep.  I tried to read.  I forced myself to wait another hour before checking again.  Finally around 3am, as I poked it some more, the bump came to a head and burst open, releasing….

….pus.   A whole lot of pus.  We’re talking an unreasonable amount, actually, for such a small bump.  Apparently I simply had a badly infected mosquito bite.  So sadly, dear reader, you will have to wait a bit longer until I experience my first mango fly.