Before leaving the States I made a first-aid kit. I hardly ever get sick, and I didn't want take any chances in China. I was given very detailed and graphic descriptions of the types of diseases I could get, and how I should prepare. "You'll be sick the ENTIRE time. Don't worry, you'll get used to it." Or my favorite, "A Pepto a day keeps the doctor away!"
With this motto in mind, I trudged off to Costco to buy a year's supply of Pepto, and whatever else I could shove into my new first aid kit. I bought enough supplies that I could probably care for half of China in the event of a bird flu outbreak. Then I packed the kit and lugged it half way across the world.
I haven't even felt a twinge of sickness. I eat everything, I drink boiled water, and I spend a lot of time in close quarters with other people. I haven't had reason to crack the first aid kit open. My good health aside, there is one thing I didn't count on being an issue: mosquitos.
The problem didn't start until my second week here, after I had moved out of the student dorms. At the apartment we leave our patio door and windows open-- there are no screens. I live on the third floor of the apartment building, and had not anticipated having a problem with the mosquitos. On my second night in the apartment, I slept with the blankets off. The weather had been unbearably hot, and the cool air felt good. The next morning I woke up with nearly twenty mosquito bites on my legs. Describing them as mosquito bites isn't quite accurate; they are mosquito welts, and they itched like hell. By the end of that week, nearly half of my anti-itch cream had been used and bandages covered my legs. I closed the window in the bedroom and made sure I ALWAYS slept under the blankets. That system worked fine for a couple of days. No new bites, and the other ones were finally started to heal.
About a week later I had another bout with the mosquitos. That time, I woke up with mosquito bites covering half of my face. I had one on my eyelid that made my eye feel heavy and swollen. I was a little more patient with these ones, and within a couple of days they were gone.
I spent some time that week looking up the Chinese words for mosquito bite, mosquito spray, and kill, kill, kill. After my Chinese roommate saw my face and realized the problem, she gave me a fan to use. If the fan was blowing on me at night, the mosquitos would be unable to bite me. This seemed to work pretty well for a while. The only problem is that they are ever present during the day. Every morning when I take a shower, there is the inevitable mosquito flying around the bathroom. (Ooh, I just love killing them with the shower spray!) Everyday when I eat meals or do homework, there is always a mosquito buzzing just out of my reach.
What make this situation all the worse is that I seem to be the only one with this problem. Oh, others do get bit, it's just that their reaction is much smaller, if noticable at all. My mosquito bites are huge, and last for days on end.
I finally went shopping and bought a mosquito killer plug-in. I'm not sure if it really works or not, but having it on makes me feel better. I still use the fan and refuse to open my window, so it's hard to know what to attribute my reduction of mosquito bites to.
The week before last was the first week I didn't have any new bites. (I've taken to counting them to see how many new ones I get everyday.) I thought that I was finally on the road to a mosquito free existance, when it happened again. I was shopping for some bootleg DVDs at the time. The DVD stand was in the shade, and as I stood there reading the labels, I could feel pricking on my legs, and an intense itching. I must have been absorbed in whatever I was reading, because for some reason it didn't register in my brain what was going on. It was only when I started using one foot to scratch at the other leg that I realized there was a problem. I looked down: at least a dozen mosquitos had already attached themselves to my calves and were happily sucking in my blood. Back to wearing long pants again...
AAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've developed a method recent days to deal with the mosquitos that bite me at night. Whether I see them or not, they seem to be always present. When I'm ready to go to bed, I lay back and wait. In the evenings, the mosquitos get hungry. If I lay still I can watch as they come out of their hiding places and land on my wall. I just know they're waiting for me to close my eyes. I've found that heading them off at the pass has been the best method. I wait until they're on the wall, and then I take a DVD case and proceed to smoosh 'em. I've chosen the DVD "Patton" to do the job. Patton is a pretty tough guy, and the mosquito blood--my blood--blends in with the red on the picture. I wouldn't want to mess with Patton; he's a man carrying a crop-whip.
My other method of mosquito deterance has been a daily dose of vitamin B. Apparently, people who don't have enough vitamin B get mosquito bites more often. I was also told that people with blood type B also attract mosquitos. I don't know what my blood type is, but I now have a strong suspicion.
Oops, one just landed above my head-- gotta go!
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