Welcome to Africa

There is one thing that every person on the entire ship has a fear of. It's not pirates, or malaria or even the wireless network going down.

It's the Mango fly.

Mango flies maybe the most creepiest creature in all of West Africa. I noticed that the Wikipedia article doesn't include a picture so let me paint one for you: imagine a horsefly with bright red eyes and white stripes. Imagine this thing laying eggs on your bathing suit or towel when you are hanging out at the beach. Then think about those eggs hatching and maggots burrowing into your skin. Awesome, right?

I don't know of anyone personally who has gotten Mango fly'd (as I like to call it), but I know that it's happened. Mango fly maggots are now my group of friends answer for every physical ailment. It's even replaced malaria as our go-to medical answer.
Your foot itches? It's a maggot. You have a cough? A maggot. That's not a sunburn, it's a maggot.

A couple weeks ago I was in the dining room having just finished my last shift of work when I saw Matt sitting in a chair. He was twisting around trying to look at the side of his foot; when I walked up to him he immediately said, "I've got something stuck under my skin in my foot." He lifted it to show me a little black spot and said, "It's either a rock or a maggot." I wasn't very interested in looking too closely at it.
Luckily, Rhoda, who is a nurse, came by and helped him extract the object (which did turn out to be a rock). I was both disappointed and relieved that it wasn't really a maggot. I seem to be lucky in the fact that the Mango flies aren't as attracted to me as bees are.

I still have 27 days left and every day that goes by brings another chance of  Mango flies getting me or someone I know, so we'll see what happens!