We had the house fumigated, so now I
only get a few flea bites a day from what ever gets on me during the day
walking around. I had hundreds, for a while there, because I'd get 20 -
50 a day and they last and itch FOREVER, and leave scars that I don't know how
long they last. Your Mom seemingly has only had 2 or 3 the whole time
we've been here. The exterminator guy tells me its because I'm allergic
to the fleas' anticoagulant they inject when they bit you, to keep the blood flowing,
and she is not. She's probably getting bit too, but doesn't react.
None of the Chileans seem to be bothered by them. I see lots of
stray dogs that are very bothered by them. You can't walk anywhere
without stray dogs coming up to you, and they're lounging around on all the
sidwalks and in front of people's businesses and doors, especially on the main
streets. Its real easy for fleas to hop off a dog and on to a
person. You'd never see it, they're so small and quick.
I don't feel them biting.
But occasionally I think I feel them walking around under my clothes
looking for a place to bite. What do you do when you feel that itchy feeling
and you're at someone's house in the middle of a discussion? They get
under your clothes and you can never see them they're so quick and small and
blend in to dark colors.
The fleas here are very small. I've only seen
two. They really big ones are the size of a pin head. They're
impossible to kill by rubbing them between your fingers and squeezing or
slapping them like mosquitos. But you can stun them by rubbing them real
hard between your fingers so they don't jump away real quick, and then you can
smash them with one fingernail against the other. That is the missionary
way.
Its already getting cold again, after only a
few weeks of cool (not warm) weather. When the sun is not out, (most of
the time here on the coast except for a few weeks in the summer) its like the
Lucky Leaf in winter on a cold cloudy windy day. The only difference is
its the same temperature inside your house as outside, so you never get away
from the cold. This morning when we woke up it was 58 deg. inside the
house. Not too bad. Sometimes it gets real cold inside.
The people here are very strange to us, when
it comes to the temperature. All winter long, they leave the doors to the
church wide open and open the windows in the classrooms because its "too
hot", or "too stuffy". Because the wind blows always, and
the way the church is designed like an "H",the wind comes screaming
in the front door and down all the hallways and out another door. They
like that when its about 45 degrees inside and out, and they bundle up and are
happy.
Then, in the peak of summer, like January and
Feb, when the church building (all concrete and stone and ceramic tile finish)
is just warming up to about 65 deg or so (you'd think they'd be boiling if 45
is hot to them in the winter, right?). But in the summer, they all start
complaining about 65 deg. being cold and they turn on the heating system till
its about 80 inside, and they still complain about it being cold. But
they still leave the front door wide open (65-70 outside). They will never turn
on the heater in the winter no matter how cold it is inside. "Its
not good for your health to have warm air in the winter", and "there
is no reason to waste all that gas."
We have quit trying to close doors and windows
to keep the temperature moderate, because within a couple of minutes someone
will open them. Its like trying to stop the tide or the wind.
Imagine the sensory experience of hundreds of these.
They last about 3 weeks.
