Comments on: Letters, Worms, and Missions

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:11:13 +0000

Fascinating, David. Thanks.

By: C Jones

C Jones — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:41:21 +0000

My son is going to Mexico next month. You are terrifying me!

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:26:50 +0000

Or Tunga penetrans.

Photos here (viewer caution advised)

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:20:02 +0000

I would guess that nigna should read nigua.

By: david knowlton

david knowlton — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:45:38 +0000

Gerald…Hope you enjoyed Potosi. I sure did. It was a great place to finish my mission. (I was there in 75-76.)

By: david knowlton

david knowlton — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:44:30 +0000

SMB: the Binchuca is a reduviid bug (triatoma infestans) and occupies most of lowland Latin America. It is increasingly moving up into the highlands, although last I knew it was not found in the specific areas I frequent as an anthropologist. But it was very present in many of the regions where I was a missionary. Gerald Smith’s spelling is one of the alternatives (vinchuca) since Spanish does not really distinguish v and b in pronunciation. In English i think most people use the v spelling and in Spanish most use the B spelling.

I wonder how other missionaries narrate the exposure to things like the Binchuca with its potential to bring chagas. I think the narratives are part of what give great strength to much mission life such that it locates the Church deep within them. Illness is part of the existential world of missionaries and when you do not have your ordinary support and information networks it seems so much bigger…sometimes it is so much bigger. Those networks include your physicians. It seems to me it can create an even greater–though perhaps problematic–reliance of faith.

By: Gerald Smith

Gerald Smith — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:04:22 +0000

My first area of my mission was Potosi, Bolivia in Feb 1979. I recall my first companion, Rick Pace, suggest as we were each drinking a bag of milk that perhaps we shouldn’t drink it, as it was the cause for him having typhoid (IIRC).
He later went back to the States early, and finished in Pennsylvania, due to illness.
Dysentery was a very common illness. The joke was that if you didn’t have it at least once a month, there was something wrong with you.
As for the botfly larvae, I did have something akin to that in my foot in my last area in Yacuiba. One night, I bent my big toe a little, and felt it hurt. When I examined my foot, I felt a pimple in the crease under the toe, where the joint is. I squeezed the pimple, only to have a larva come out. About 1/4″ in length, so it shocked me. Fortunately, I still have my foot.

It was common for elders to have malaria, typhoid, and other maladies. I do recall one sister that had Mal de Chagas, who was healed by a priesthood blessing. And it is delivered by the vinchuca cockroach, the only roach that thinks two dimensionally and carries such a terrible disease.

By: smb

smb — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:47:27 +0000

Pratt’s problem sounds like botfly larvae. always makes you feel grand when you’re visibly a slab of meat to the natural world. Chagas disease is usually carried by the reduviid bug. Is the binchuca beetle the local name for reduviid bug?

One of my most vivid memories was of administering blessings of healing to marginalized groups on their deathbeds while a missionary.

You’re right, though, the mission has a way of aggrandizing even minor illness, probably in a good way at the time.