I am thankful to say that malaria is currently not an issue for those of us who live in Phnom Penh. Dengue Fever, however, is another story. You can contract Dengue Fever by being bitten by the Tiger Mosquito (a nickname given due to the black and white stripes on its body)...which is a day biting mosquito (malaria mosquitos bite at night). When you are bitten the Dengue Virus is transmitted into your body and begins to multiply. Dengue Fever, also known as the 'bonecrusher disease' causes headache, fever, severe bone and joint pain, dehydration, and when people are not careful it can and does kill by causing internal hemorrhaging.
SO, needless to say we hunt down every last mosquito that makes it into our house! When a mosquito is spotted, whatever is going on...a game, a discussion, a language session, etc., stops and we run through the room trying to kill the thing. If we are lucky, our electric mosquito zapper (looks like a small tennis racket that you swing through the air and any insect it comes into contact with gets zapped...EVERYONE needs one of these!!!) is close at hand when we see the little blood sucker and we can take a swing and usually kill the thing quickly. Otherwise we have to chase it down with our hands hoping that we can smash it...not so easy!
Aiden has been watching us kill mosquitos for months now and has taken quite an interest in it lately. He really enjoys following his daddy around the room, waving his hands and clapping in the air, mimicking what he sees his daddy doing when Chris is chasing down a mosquito. We found this to be quite amusing to watch, but what took us by surprise was when one day Aiden ran through the room and clapped his hands together and then turned to us proudly and exclaimed "I killed it! I killed it!"
Aiden has become quite the little "mosquito slayer"....he's never really killed one (that we know of at least), but as he plays throughout the day he will stop what he is doing clap his hands together and announce that he has indeed "killed it!"
I'm not sure I EVER thought I would be proud of my son telling me he killed something, but when it comes to mosquitos there can be no mercy!
2 comments:
Good job Aiden! Those "tennis racket" bug zappers are kind of nice. I once held my tongue to one for about 5 seconds on a dare from my sister in law...I recommend just using them for bugs. And if you want to zap your tongue, clean the zapper off first. Wise words to live by...
I learned that big spiders don't like the bug zappers either, but it just makes them mad.
Uncle Travis wants to know if Aiden's "killing" methods will work on elk.
Love you guys!!
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