I woke up late last night scratching at my skin with all the skilled and delicate technique of a crack addict and had an epiphany: I’ve been blaming my wool blanket all this time for an unpleasant looking, disproportionately itchy body rash when the real culprit is my poor choice of sleeping partner! Or, for full disclosure, I should really say partners. That’s right…I’ve been sleeping with bed bugs. It’s really my own fault. I should have used protection.
In light of my discomforting discovery I’ve been bleaching sheets (by hand, effectively trading in one skin rash for a more sanitary one), trading out old mattresses and old memories and cautioning curious neighbors to abstain from bed bugs until marriage. The funny part is, though I’ve yet to meet even one Ugandan who doesn’t believe in God, I can’t find anyone here who believes in bed bugs. Nobody! Or, at least not the microscopic kind I first saw on Oprah and then in a series of subsequent nightmares. So forget heated cross-cultural discussions on religion- my day was spent arguing that, yes, this ugly rash does prove the existence of bed bugs and no, my rash is not the same phenomenon as the freckles on my nose, but thank you for equating my skin pigmentation with unsightly skin lesions.
Ugandans are funny when it comes to most things, skin included. I’ve been asked on more than one occasion, with sincere sorry-your-goat-died concern, if my freckles hurt. I’ve been advised to go to the hospital for a light sunburn. Whereas in America we have the polite tradition of ignoring other people’s blemishes, Ugandans readily and excitedly point them out. As in, they’ll literally plop their fingers directly on my face and ask if the mosquitoes have been biting me. My usual response is, no, that’s my adult acne, and your fingers on my face aren’t really helping matters. But alas, I’ve learned skin abnormalities are just one of those things perfect-skinned Ugandans can’t understand. And, unfortunately for me, it’s also one they can’t keep their fingers off.
