What's Da Buzz?

I suppose I should make the title Those Little Buggers but it wouldn’t have the same effect. What are those buggers and how are they related to Life Here & There? That would be lice.

Growing up in the Philippines, I was introduced into a number of concepts about lice that didn’t make a lot of sense then and even far less now. One of the pieces of advice was you were not supposed to be out in the sun very long as lice supposedly grew on your head from exposure to sunlight. Don’t ask me how that was supposed to work but that is what I was told. Is it true? No, plants grow with exposure to sunlight not lice. Their eggs sure are not transported by sunlight either.

That would be more like getting a Gremlin wet.

While growing up, it wasn’t uncommon for me to see one of the housewives taking some lice from one child’s head and put it on another child’s head. Supposedly, this was to give the mom something more to do. Don’t ask me to explain why beyond that. I can’t.

Later on in high school, it was impressed on us by our peers that having lice was a part of bad hygiene so I did what I had to and got rid of them. It wasn’t that hard really and I thought I was finished with them until I came to the USA. I have no solid evidence as to where I got the lice from again. It could easily have been from the airplane seat. But upon their discovery, I got a quick introduction on how life is different in the USA.

I had only spent a couple of days with my bana before spending the rest of the time before our official meeting with his parents. In that timeframe, the lice managed to get him too but he was the last to know. On the other hand, it was caught in me and my initial reaction was one of feeling angry and insulted. I felt like I was being treated like a plague or scum and I wanted to go back home. I realized later that the Western world takes the issue of lice very seriously.

All of the things I had were bagged up and set outside so any lice on them would freeze to death over a couple of days. All of my clothing, the bed sheets, the coverings to every pillow, cushion were all washed a couple of times in the hottest water possible to boil the lice and their eggs. I had to have a special shampoo of sorts put in my hair to kill them off then use a lice comb to get the rest out. The whole process took a few days. What a welcome to the USA. At least Goryo’s parents didn’t have to go to the extreme lengths of treating the entire house for lice.

If a child is in school and is found to have lice, they are sent home until the lice infestation is gone. It is treated as an epidemic. If you are working, you are sent home on your sick time until you get rid of the lice. That is what happened to Goryo. There was one minor detail. He had to get the lice out of his apartment and his own hair by himself. He made certain of that.

He went overboard on lice killing. He shaved his hair down to 3/8ths of an inch, treated it 3x a day with the lice killing stuff, used a lint roller (masking tape) on his head, and vacuumed every square inch of his head until it was red. Any cloth thing such as bed sheets were frozen outside and then washed in really hot water. If he had many lice, they were dead or wished they were dead.

So that is the story about those little buggers. Just wait until next time for the liver damage you can get from sweating. (Long story)

Thank you,

Anah

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