scabies.

last saturday night we celebrated amalio's birthday.
sunday we went to the river.
monday morning, amalio spent in emergency getting injected with anti-allergy medication and pricked and prodded trying to figure out why his face had swelled to the size of a watermelon.

for the first time ever, amalio took medical leave. his ears resemble that of dumbo - except red, and, he claims, really uncomfortable. his face has returned to normal size, but the rash just keeps showing up everywhere else.

scabies is pretty common here. the lack of clean water, even in the cities where water is "purified," unclean holding tanks (we don't have one) and cold water used for cleaning clothes cause some pretty nasty skin diseases. mostly, though, you find them in the poorer neighborhoods and... public schools. i had scabies when i worked in the church - it's really not as gross as its reputation: a skin rash that spreads. and comes back for more. it's the process of getting rid of it that's a pain.

wash everything in your house, hang dry in the sun, iron. anything that can't be washed needs to be packed in black plastic bags and tied shut. it's good to put these bags in the sun, too, but no matter what they need to be left closed for 5 days or so.

eventhough we know amalio doesn't have scabies (it hasn't affected any of the other 4 people in our apartment and none of our collective students of coworkers), we did most of the routine. wash, dry, iron, steam clean.

but it just keeps going.

i think it's stress. and i think that once final exams are over and everything is in place - grades in books, records sent to district, my students back in korea for the summer, samil potty-trained... - he'll be good and rash-free. if you've got any home-made cures for funky rashes, let me know. we're looking for anything.

(we've tried corn-starch, milk of magnesia, some leaves from some tree in a tea, and oatmeal bath)