Graveyard Shift

One week and three days left in Venezuela!

This past week, we've been surveying the cemeteries looking for mosquitoes. This should have been a rapid and simple quest that is completed by now. Unfortunately, the trips to Mucuchíes (3000 m) and Mucurubá (2400 m) seem to have caused problems in two of the Malariología vehicles. Or maybe the problems were there before, it's hard to say since I don't know much about cars. But I can say that I have developed an appreciation for good cars and powerful trucks. I didn't understand the attraction before, but I definitely do now.

Another personal change is that I have gotten over all uneasiness regarding cemeteries. They used to freak me out a little bit, and I would hate it when they were part of our route in high school track practice. But now, we're working in cemeteries where the graves are so close as to be touching and I have to climb over the stones to get to the flower vases and check for larvae. I've skirted narrowly by open tombs, tripped over grass-covered crosses, and walked through gigantic spiderwebs. Of course, this has all been done in daylight with a sturdy reliable coworker.

I did a lot of data entry today, so here's a little discussion of the standings in Meagan vs. Mosquito: we surveyed 13 sites in Mérida, only 3 of which did not have mosquitos. I consider the 3 without mosquitos to be a small gain for us, since we get information lots of information from their absence but we didn't affect anything in the present. In the other 10 sites, we were sometimes able to treat the whole area and sometimes only half. All of our 5 Ejido sites had larvae, with a similar situation regarding access. In El Vigía, all 6 sites were positive for larvae. In fact, we came to expect that the majority of houses we entered had larvae, which is a bracing situation in terms of public health. Although we treated left and right, I'm sure it was only a small dent in the overall population.

After that rundown, I realize there may be some head-scratching about what I actually did all summer and what this information means. A quick description: after deciding on our sites within each city, two or three of us went to the requisite corner or landmark. This part often involved demonstrative hand-waving discussions with lots of "aquí" and "allí" and "no, no, no." Once that was done, we recorded temperature measurements and GPS points. Then we approached the first house, store, or building. Usually, a Malariología person spoke first and flashed their fancy badge while I tried to look amiable, non-intimidating, and Spanish-speaking. Once given permission to enter, one of us would ask questions about water supply and trash collection while the rest of us walked through the house looking for and recording the buckets, tanks, flower pots, vases, and other water containers. When one was found to have larvae, at least two of us would confer about species ID. By this time, the people living in the house would have figured out that I was not from Venezuela, and I fielded lots of questions about where I am from and why I am here. By and large, people are friendly and this is a lot of fun, and the older people had a tendency to give me all kinds of blessings and welcomes. However, sometimes people would manifest their curiosity by pointing at me and asking "does the skinny girl speak Spanish?" Then we would shake their hands and say "gracias" and "a la orden" many times and move to the next house.

A resolution: I will be extra nice to the people who come house-to-house and end up at mine. I have a very deep gratitude to everyone who offered us water, coffee, juice, and a place to sit in the shade during the extreme heat. I was especially touched by the very poor woman who pulled out her plastic chairs and her blackberry wine and by an older man who gave us tall glasses of hand-squeezed guyabana juice. Muchísimo gracias.