"Jiggers Africa"

As of 4 p.m. today I was so on board about going out to Iganga for the next month to work on health, and then I heard about jiggers. Be forewarned, this is not for all audiences, especially those who are squeamish and easily disgusted by creepy crawly things. If you’re still on board, then congratulations, but don’t get too proud of your “tough stomach” because you are sitting there reading this blog in a nice jigger-free home.

So imagine you are walking along a dusty red dirt road in Uganda watching the broad green leaves of a banana tree sway to and fro with the breeze. It’s hot and humid, but the relief of a cool house always makes this walk back from a day in the field visiting women’s houses a lot more bearable. As you sit down on your bed to take a nap, you notice a mosquito bite that really itches on the tip of your big toe. Those darn mosquitoes always manage to bite you in the most annoying places! When you reach a finger down to relieve the itch, you realize that there is a small lump under your skin. You figure it’s just a bad reaction to that particular bite, and settle in for you nap. The next week goes by and you notice more of these bumps on the bottom of your feet. You think how in the world are mosquitoes biting the bottoms of my feet? and then it hits you like a Ugandan mini-bus barreling down the highway….JIGGERS!

This tiny flea-like insect burrows into the skin while it is to small to really see it. The jiggers tend to get in when you are in dusty areas, and are also known to breed in unhygienic conditions in the home. Once they burrow under your skin, they suck your blood and breed. As they grow to adulthood they form little lumps, and lay more eggs, which in turn grow and multiply themselves. If left untreated, they can cause a person lose the ability to put weight on the bottom of their feet and walk. It is pretty straightforward to get them out - you cut them out, BUT you have to make sure they don’t burst because apparently that will allow them to spread more eggs or something equally horrible and disgusting. While I said it was straightforward, it also sounds absolutely awful. I wish they had a jigger-away pill or magic jigger-be-gone salve rather than a scalpel.

Why do I find these so terrifying when other tropical diseases like Ebola, typhoid, and malaria are present? Well Ebola is far more rare, granted also pretty disturbing. Glad I didn’t reread The Hot Zone before coming here. In related news, a girl died of Ebola in central Uganda about 3 weeks ago, and I got a lovely U.S. State Department email warning me of a possible Ebola outbreak, but it is actually rather small. Plus, in the off chance I ever got it, they do have ways to treat it if caught early. Typhoid, another unpleasant one, is caused by drinking contaminated drinking water. I don’t drink water that hasn’t been either boiled or bottled, so not so worried about typhoid. And while Malaria would suck, I am taking antimalarials every single morning, hiding out in my bug net typing this, and wearing bug spray when needed. The problem with jiggers? They are in the DUST, they are too tiny to notice initially, and they burrow under your skin and multiplyyyyy. If you take two steps outside your door in any place outside of Kampala you automatically get a tan, well a dust one anyway, so how the heck am I supposed to avoid dust? The next reason I am terrified of them? The Busoga region is the most heavily impacted one of all of Uganda, and guess where it lies? Right next to Iganga district! Yes folks, I am going to the land of the Jiggers. As if spottier electricity, hotter temperatures, and more mosquitoes wasn’t enough, now my supervisor Phoebe just had to mention this itty bitty creature.

So since we all wear open-toed shoes and capris or skirts everyday, and my entire agenda revolves around tramping around the Igangan bush, we will be wearing stockings (tights? long socks? panty hose? I have no idea) when we go out. If this is not the fashion statement of the year, I don’t know what is! Finally, I thought Phoebe had given me a little teeny weenie nugget of hope to cling to, until she drowned that light right out. The past intern that lived up in Iganga liked to go running everyday, so she wore her stockings and then told Phoebe she had one of these little mosquito bites that…you know where this story goes. Apparently, not only to you have to wear stockings, but you also have to wash everything – you, your clothes, your shoes, and the stockings upon returning from the field to make sure the little buggers (literally) die. Once again, I had a ray of hope - all I had to do was wear stockings and wash them  - and then poof, that sliver of hope and calm too was gone. The reason many people, even out in the villages, iron their clothes? Not the need for crisp creases, but the desire to kill the last of the jiggers with searing heat. So while I was planning to do my own laundry there, I am definitely going to have to go find someone with a laundry service and an iron, which actually wont be too hard to do I presume.

Maybe I am being ridiculous, maybe I am being overly concerned, but before you judge me, I am here, you are there, and I just stupidly Google Image searched “jiggers Africa.”