French of the trouncing then being administered by Manchester United
upon Blackburn Rovers (7-1) when I saw the Kinois Impersonator of Sean
Aylward (I introduced this character in a recent post), who was
playing with two of his cousins of about his age, suddenly cough up
violently and vomit on an upturned plastic stool the 7-inch dead
ascarid featured on the BlackBerry photo above!
Happy "genuine" Sean Aylward growing up in the worm-free habitat of
the United States where he won't ever live the horrid experience of
ascariasis--a tummy infestation with ascarides or some other nasty
worms, let alone deadly amoebas!
(At 11, I had a dreadful tapeworm episode in my hometown of Kisangani:
the dead tenia my mom patiently extracted from my anus measured not in
inches but in feet!)
"Infestation"!... Hmm... This means that the worm above left fellow
parasitic colonists inside the tummy of my poor Kinois Impersonator!
Colonists who'd no doubt be evacuated through the other orifice or
just thrown up again. The tummy as a rich biodiversity ecology...
The day before (Friday), a team of two UNICEF public health agents (a
woman and a man) stopped by to administer to the Kinois Impersonator 2
drugs: a tablet of a vermifuge called "Mebendenzol" (I'm not sure
about the spelling) and drops of vitamin A. No wonder the impersonator
parted with this worm...
I'm told that hundreds of these health agents go door to door
throughout the city every two or three months (my informant isn't sure
about the frequency of visits) for these much needed health care
interventions on children.
About a month ago, a WHO team dropped by to give the Impersonator oral
polio vaccine. The team left a circle with strange markings inscribed
inside traced with white chalk on the gate of the compound. No doubt
to let their colleagues know they've already been at the house where
they vaccinated one or more kids.
Talking of polio... about a week ago, it was reported that WHO teams
were scrambling across neighboring Congo-Brazzaville, Angola and parts
of the DRC close to these countries in order to urgently stymie a
strange outbreak of polio that had just crippled a couple of hundred
people in the port city of Pointe-Noire in Congo-Brazzaville!
(And the other night I got the heebie-jeebies from an uncannily vivid
nightmare: a major outbreak of Ebola was flaring up in Kin and I had
the hypochondriac's paranoid conviction of having contracted the
deadly virus!)
These free domestic health care interventions on children are critical
in this country devoid of any form of meaningful health care for
universally poor households... I can only wish that kids in remote
rural areas also get the same exposure to these international health
programs as do their urban counterparts.
As for the Kinois Impersonator, he readily resumed playing with his
buddies after briefly marveling at the strange creature that just
emerged from the unfathomable abyss of his tummy...
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