Eaten alive by parasites

Except for the Christmas party our last venture was to test the kids for parasites. Thanks to our volunteer Bryan who checked all the samples of the kids. It was a tedious process but worth the cause. We had to make all the kids bring fresh excerements samples to school in plastic cups we provided to them. More or less 80% of the kids did turn up the next day with them in the school. We agreed earlier with one of the doctors to use his cabinet and microscope to do the screening of the samples. So once we got the samples the only thing left for us was to go to the lab where Bryan was to check them. Michelle, me and Rita assisted Brian with his work.

It was quite exciting since all of us wanted to see some interesting animal. Indeed, there were quite a few as over 70% of the kids were infected with something (for me however it was difficult to see what was normal under microscope and what should not have been there). You can take a look at the few species I am talking about here:

• ascaris
• e. histolytica
• giardia
• trichuris

If you do a thorough job of googling you can find some horryfing pictures with more mature stages of life of them (only for people who want to see something really horryfing). There were more problems but I think I do not need to mention them. One kid had four parasites what is quite unusal and even Brian who is a professional in this field was astonished.

By the way - the next day we had a farewell launch in one of the schools - traditional guinea pig. I was not to eager to eat it anyway but I think the biggest surprise was that the food was prepared by a mum of the kid that had four parasites...Anyway the food was very good and we were honored to be served with a guinea pig. We tried not to remember what Bryan discovered the day before...

Anyway our doctors will now prescribe the medicine for the kids and for some time they should be ok. Nevertheless, one would need a more thorough teaching plan for the kids and their parents - preventive measures in the field of hygiene. We started it but the new directors will have to follow up. As for us we decided to test ourselves right before leaving Peru - just in case :))