Ever since my mom got hospitalized (and flew back home) due to a deadly mosquito-transmitted virus, I’ve been paranoid about mosquitoes. So far, I’ve been pretty lucky. Either they didn’t like to bite me, or I was staying in places where there just weren’t many of them.
But I’ve recently moved to another relative’s home. This place is near a large pond and there are mosquitoes everywhere. Particularly worrisome is the fact that there are a lot of daytime mosquitoes. In Dhaka, daytime mosquitoes are particularly dangerous as they are the kind of mosquitoes that carry the deadly Dengue Virus which is prevalent in this city (and which my mother had contracted).
I’ve taken the basic precautions – I’ve worn long sleeve clothing and sleep in a mosquito net. But these little guys will bite on any exposed skin. I’ve found bites on my ankles and on my neck. I’ve tried to regularly apply bug spray (sprays with DEET are the most effective). But that’s a hard routine to fall into. You have to spray yourself every five to six hours and after you shower. That’s fine for a camping trip – but when you live here for a while, it can kind of get tedious.
Oddly enough, that’s actually the same excuse my mom used for not regularly spraying herself with bug spray. I criticized her for not protecting herself everyday – but I didn’t use the stuff myself since I rarely got bitten (she on the other hand got bitten a lot).
The fact that getting ill might serve some form of poetic justice only heightens my paranoia about mosquito bites.
