The lone louse
There once was a lonely louse. This
louse lived in the vast forest of Hairdom. He was the only louse in in Hairdom. And
it made him very sad to be all alone. So one day while clinging to
his most favorite strand…he made a vow. He vowed that he would
travel high and low to find other lice and start a mass lice colony
that would travel from head to head and stop the spread of lice
loneliness. And he did just as he vowed. The End.
Moral of the story…lice never live
alone.
A few Sundays ago we were told we would be helping
treat some of the children in the village for lice. As itchy as that
made my scalp, I was ready. Now lice treatments kits are no where to
be found in this village. And they were far from affordable even if
they did exist in the whole country. So I knew we would probably just
be washing their hair with shampoo and making the best of a poor
situation.
I however was not prepared for what
came. While walking up to the scene of the crime, I noticed Raid and shampoo laid out. Wait…what is the Raid for!? Then the bug
killer preceded to be sprayed in the childrens hair.
And while my teammate Justin read all
the warnings off the label, the rest of us put up a fight of basic
general health concern. We figured if it killed bugs by just spraying
it in a room, that it shouldn’t be sprayed on or near a child’s head.
Protesting did little good, it had been done before. So with little
choice left we figured the best we could do was keep kids from
inhaling more than they needed and to wash that stuff out quickly
with buckets of pond water. Plus…if it helped or at least made
these children feel loved for an afternoon -it was well worth it in
my book.
So I spent the next two hours washing
Raid out of these beautiful Cambodian little heads, brushing hair,
praying that no lice decided to make residence on my own head, and
thinking about Jesus washing feet and the similarities and
differences between that and what I was doing.
To all the mothers, activists, and
worriers out there..you may be upset or angry about the fact that we
sprayed Raid onto children’s hair…if so…please don’t take it out
on the organization. It’s a fabulous ministry that is taking care of
these youth. This organization is improving and reaching out to these
amazing boys and girls. If you just are beside yourself…the best
thing you could do is figure out how to get lice kits to these
children. It really isn’t fair or funny that these children suffer
with this.
