Project Sekong 2012: We get homesick. We get hungry. Now we’re getting eaten alive by a bug the Lao call the “mandan”.

February 13, 2012
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A deminer has a dozen "mandan" bites on each hand and more on his legs and forearms. After years of working in the bush, we discover a new misery. The tiny mites come back to camp with us from the field and make themselves at home in our sleeping bags.

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Ahh! At last! The tick that I’ve been studying for the last couple minutes has started crawling across my knee.  It’s alive. That confirms that I succeeded in pulling it off my neck without tearing its head off.  I have a crummy batting average with ticks here.  They always clamp on to me in some hard to see location, and if I pull them off but leave their head behind, under my skin, I usually end up with an infected sore that’s slow to heal.

While I’ve been the favorite dining establishment for leeches and ticks, the rest of the team has been driven to distraction by a tiny little insect that people here call the “mandan”.  For such a little bug (smaller than the period at the end of this sentence) they’ve created big misery.  The guys get up from sitting or kneeling on the ground and immediately feel them crawling about.

They wiggle through socks, creep up shirtsleeves or pant legs, and imbed themselves in the softest skin they can find. Once they burrow in they’re home to stay until you dig them out with a needle.  But… digging around assures that the sore they create will fester and itch all the more.

While I’ve had quite a few bites on my feet and legs, my hands and arms have been spared.  We joke that the ticks prefer American blood and the mandan Lao, but the real reason I’m less afflicted is that the deminers spend many more hours each day kneeling on the ground, digging in the soil.

What has the guys worried is that, supposedly, if you get a lot of mandan bites, you’re likely to get something called Mandan Fever, which everyone characterizes as being similar in symptoms to Malaria or Dengue.

Yai’s convinced that he’s doomed because, far and away, he’s been most bitten.  He came barreling out of his tent two nights ago when he found four of the tiny critters inside his bedroll, waiting for the restaurant to open.  He’s vowed to sleep outside his tent until every mandan inside has starved.  Of course, we have no science literature to consult, so its anyone’s guess how long a mandan can live without a meal.

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