A Close Encounter With Culture

This post is about grittier side of being a missionary- one of the most disturbing experiences we've had so far (those with weak constitutions may want to just skip this post and watch our awesome video again:-) 

We had always heard about the insect.  Paraguayans and missionaries had told us stories about the ura (a.k.a. the bot fly) and how nasty it is.  You know, how its larvae burrows under the skin and grows in the flesh of it's host for months and how it's body has little black barbs that prevent it from being extracted.  Check out this amazing National Geographic video about the bot fly!

Though cows are usually the host of choice for this parasitic bug once in a while humans also have the privilege of  harboring an ura... or two.  Here in Paraguay there are even sayings about it in Guarani and now we too will have our own ura story to tell because our totally tough son, Eli, got two of them in the top of his head.  Add that badge to our rural missionary jackets! 

We first noticed the bumps with the tale tell breathing hole about three weeks ago.  Several of Eli's glands were also swollen as if to tell us, 'umm, somethings not quite right here!'  But there's no easy way to get rid of an ura.  Some people tie raw meat over the entry point so as to draw out the critter or simply spray it with bug killer- ouch!  We took Eli to our teammate who is a doctor and numbed him up in order to extract the uras- but without any success.  The bumps continued to grow.  A week later we once again returned to our friend and he checked Eli's head.  This time the uras were big enough that with some squeezing their little heads emerged from the breathing hole.  My friend squeezed, I manned the tweezers... pinched... pulled... and POP!   We had removed two bean-sized uras from the top of my son's head!  And here's the proof.