#phrao

Enemies With Benefits Series

Lise mezuniyet töreni. O kadar eğlenceliydi ki! Girişte birsürü çiçekçi ve oyuncakçı vardı, niye ki derken, herkes yerlerine dizildi ve öğrencilerin geçit töreni başladı. Onlar geçerken yanlara dizilmiş diğerleri ellerine çiçekler, şekerler, sahte paralar, kocaman oyuncaklar,balonlar verdiler. Kimin çok sevildiği elindeki hediyelerin çokluğundan anlaşılıyordu! Rengarenk, neşe dolu bir törendi!

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Yeni evimiz // New home

Mutfak ve tuvalet dışarıda,oda sadece uyumak için.

Yes, I have head lice.

Spending as much time as I do with the kids, I am honestly not surprised to have contracted them.

Early on in my stay ALL of the Warm Heart girls had lice.  Here are some photos of what everybody looked like during the treatment stage. 

  To fight the lice, a hearty mixture of rice whiskey and shampoo was applied to the girl’s heads. The colorful shower caps were necessary so that the mixture could sit for several hours thereby suffocating any live bugs.

The more challenging part is to carefully pick out all of the remaining eggs, or nits. The potent, anti-lice mixture doesn’t kill the eggs but does help to loosen the glue connecting them to a hair follicle. A single missed nit could restart the entire process. It’s important to check and recheck for weeks. 

Although the Children’s Home had been lice-clear for several months, it should not have come as any shock that they would strike again.

Even so, when fellow volunteer Devon first suggested that my curiously itchy scalp was more than simply an itchy scalp, I was first dubious, then alarmed, and finally resigned to the idea of lice. 

It wasn’t until after I brought up my suspicions to housemother Sripan that she informed me the little girls were indeed fighting another bout of the dreaded creatures.  Café, Karakade and Nipa love to braid my hair so it takes no stretch of the imagination to devise how I received my case.

  Housemate Zoe decided to treat her head out of precaution so she made us a lice antidote of vinegar and shampoo while I hot-washed all the bedding, clothing, brushes and hair ties that we had come in contact with.  That was no fun!

The discovery of a few tiny dead bugs when I rinsed confirmed to my great disgust that, yes, I was afflicted.

Zoe found no evidence, but, head still itchy, decided to assume until disproven that she also had lice.

I bought a de-lice ointment from the pharmacy for another rinse.  The small tube came in yellow 50´s-style packaging with a beaming woman on the cover.  It smelled of lavender.

Zoe spent the better part of two days scouring my head, inch by inch, attempting to remove all the nits. The evening of the second day our landlady stopped by and noticed the grooming session out on the porch. She immediately understood the situation and offered her advice. 

Then she had a look at Zoe’s head and said “mai mee,” meaning “no have” which was a great relief to both of us.  Our landlady also seemed to think I was close to being rid of them. She brought me some rice whiskey to apply with shampoo. 

Unfortunately, Devon has now picked up a mild case as well.  Meanwhile, Josh and Brandon have repeatedly mentioned how glad they are to not have hair.

We will keep fighting.  The children have been home on holiday for a number of days. Evelind says the girls usually bring head lice back from breaks at home so we must be prepared to take up the real fight once they return.   Each child’s head will need be to thoroughly examined and treated.

As close as the Warm Heart family is, it is no wonder we also share our bugs.