Iron Everything

That is the advice I got from my ex-pat colleagues when I first arrived. I thought it seemed a bit excessive until Sergey came into my office the other day with this little jar. Inside the jar were three small worm-like creatures. He shouted, “These came from my son!”

They were putsi flies. The putsi fly likes to lay eggs on wet clothing. They somehow get into your skin, where the eggs start to turn into larva, and eventually into a fly that burrows its way out of your skin. They look like pimples. Sergey saw them on his 1 yr old son and thought, “He’s awfully young to have acne,” and started to pop them. Out came the worms!

Anne, my French coworker and friend, is a nurse. She says all you have to do to get rid of them is to rub Vaseline on your skin, which suffocates them.

So this is why I iron everything, down to my underwear and socks.

The son is fine- just turned a bug-free 1 yr old on Saturday. As you can see from the picture, he's just fine!