We made it on Google Earth!!

For most of you the idea of being on Google Earth is old hat, but those of us in Port Gentil (used to gazing at a hazy whirl of cloud when looking for our town) are now sending emails back and forth with glee about the fact that we can now ZOOM IN to our little world down here! Join me in my excitement and take a look:

So this is Gabon, with our town of Port-Gentil sticking out into the ocean on the tip where I've placed the yellow circle.

And here's that point up close, which is called Mandji Island. The east side of the island (looks like peninsula here in pic) is where Port-Gentil is located. As you can see, the Atlantic coast is on the western side of the island, and the town itself looks out onto a very large bay to the east that eventually leads to the mainland (which is too far to see with the eye when at the beach). The island itself is only a few kilometers wide and maybe 25 kilometers from north to south.

And our house is the brown roof, just below the yellow circle. For those who care, our roof was redone this summer and is now similar to an orangy Italian or French terra cotta tiled roof. I'm looking forward to getting a new-and-improved Google Earth one day that shows the new roof and the swimming pool in the back yard (which is OLD, so this picture dates back a while, for sure).

But more importantly is our private island (which still needs a name) that looks out onto that magnificent bay!! As you can imagine, the white edges in the pic are the sand and the dark curve is the vegetation. Our cabana wasn't yet built on it when the picture was taken, but I hope it too will one day make it onto Google Earth! (See blog post entitled Island Cabana for pictures of us on the island)

So that's pretty much all there is to show here since our little town is less interesting from above than from street level. I'll get some shots of downtown Port Gentil in here soon! Meanwhile, plan that trip to come play on our island with us!!

Exotic Myasis!!

So is it just me or does the name Exotic Myiasis sound quite, well...exotic? And lovely. Could be the name of an island, right? Or a delicious recipe from Greece. Or perhaps even the name of a new kind of bathing suit. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING but THE LARVA FROM A FLY THAT IMPLANTS ITSELF UNDER YOUR SKIN AND GROWS INTO A MAGGOT!!!!!!!!!!! Right?

Well, anyway, you get the point, and after one year in Gabon this crazy maggot thing has now started happening to us!! It started when I decided that having our maid wash, machine dry and iron my bathing suits was a bit over the top and that a simple rinse and re-wear would be just fine for me (I mean, I'm far from the J. Lo of Africa). To be honest, Ines looked at me funnily when I told her to stay away from my bathing suits, but I thought nothing of it at the time. Turns out you in fact DO need to have your bathing suits (and underwear and socks and sheets and pajamas) washed, machine dried and ironed in order to avoid any possible Exotic Myasis occurring to you from larvae lurking in the fibers. Well, I won't tell you where my larva ended up implanting itself exactly, but suffice it to say that I was wearing a bikini when it happened.

Then about a week after I managed to pop the MAGGOT out of myself (still alive, mind you), Jourdain started to show signs quite similar to the itchy bump I had acquired, but this time on his wrist and on the lower left side of his head. Two at the same time--the poor kid!! After loads of poking, squeezing and very loud screaming from numerous family members at once Olivier and I managed to pop two Exotic Myasis (or is Myases the plural?) right out of our little 4 year old. The worst is when you pop it out and the damned thing just keeps on wiggling. OK, OK, I'm sure that's enough description for many of you.

In an effort to better understand what it was that was invading our bodies over here I ran to that handy Google icon in my toolbar and typed in "Africa fly maggot skin" and came up with the very pleasant sounding "Exotic Myasis". With 133,000 sites mentioning all or some of these words I guess our little family problem isn't all that rare after all. I felt in good company if the people at Google knew what this was all about!

Below here I've copied an abridged version of one particularly descriptive site I found. I say abridged because I've pasted the drawing of the beast rather than the actual photographs they also show. The link to the entire site is at the bottom of this post for the more curious and strong-stomached among you. - ENJOY!

(PS I'll be sure to post more pictures of us at the beach next blog in an effort to help take your mind off this one)

EXOTIC MYIASIS
Introduction

Myiasis is the invasion of living tissue or organs by the immature stage (maggots) of flies. Every year several species of exotic diptera are imported into Australia in the subdermal layers of the skin of overseas travellers. Patients returning from overseas present to their doctor with painful furuncular lesions, often unaware that the cause is a maggot.

http://medent.usyd.edu.au/fact/myiasis.html

Free Toilet Paper Anyone?

Living in Africa you can easily see what life must have been like long ago for our ancestors in Europe. One example of this is that I'm often hit with the original meaning behind many commonly used expressions that are so old they've become nothing but quaint expressions to most of us living in the developed world. Take "it fell off a truck" for instance. The other day I was driving along behind yet another truck that was about to kill me and the kids with its unattached goods floating around in the back. At first the bouncy packs of toilet paper seemed harmless and I even calculated how much money I could save this month if a few packs met with my windshield (prices here for such luxury items are probably 4X the price they cost back home). It was, however, the large bags of rice staring at me as they hopped up and down in the back there (to the right in the picture here) that made me nervous enough to pull over to the side of the road for someone else to take my spot facing the firing line.

As I grabbed my camera to catch the truck in action I realized that when you get a hold of something in Africa that "fell off a truck" you're definitely dealing with stuff that fell off a truck.