Thursday, June 23, 2011

Daily Africa: Deet

I know. I totally fell off the Daily Africa wagon. But! I have a reason! For our anniversary, Dan surprised me with a week-long trip to Charleston, Savannah, and Myrtle Beach. It was so so perfect. He took into account all of my favorite things - family time, history, the beach, frugality, etc. etc. A post on that is forthcoming.

In any case, we're back now. And so is Daily Africa. This picture is a little bit of a lame return, but I can't get on the other computer right now, so this is the best I've got.

I was maybe just an eensy bit paranoid about Nat and malaria. We were all on propylactics - there's even a pediatric dose of Malarone that we just crushed into some breast milk. To say Nat loathed the daily dose would be an understatement. Beyond that, we covered him with a mosquito net as much as possible, and deeted it up (both of which are depicted in the picture). In the words of an awesome friend who lived in malaria-ridden Ghana with her husband and small children, 'Forget what they say about DEET. Use the strongest stuff you can find on the kid--it's much better than malaria. Bypass the "5% DEET--Family Friendly and Safe for Your Baby' bottle and get the Deep Woods Sportsmen Repellent. The family stuff is a joke--maybe it works for American mosquitos, but not for the African ones."

So yeah. I figured a little Deet was better than malaria and sprayed down the edges of his carseat, etc. And then we proceeded to see not one.single.mosquito, malarial or not, the entire time we were there.

So there you have it. Can you even think of a more exciting picture? You're welcome.

1 comment:

Maxine Parrish said...

Perhaps not the most exciting picture, but a pretty great story to back it up!