Excerpt
It wasnt long before we were introduced to the next plague. Head lice were the third plague to visit the island. By that time, people became alarmed, and some began to wonder about the trouble that we were experiencing. The Street Preachers held a prayer meeting and invited our community. At the end of the meeting, Sister Ruby said that she had a word from God.
Someone among us committed an evil deed. We should all should repent, she said. God said that if one sinned, all sinned. Get down on you knees, people, and ask God to forgive you, or these plagues will not go away.
Remember Achan from the Bible. In the Book of Joshua, Achan sinned and the people was curse. And they suffer at the hands of the enemies.
After we heard the word from God, people began to look at one another, wondering who was the biggest sinner in the gathering. Although they all had their opinions about who might have brought the plagues on the community, no one was willing to point a finger. Many of us children did not believe what Sister Ruby said. After all, we had no Pharaoh, nor did we believe that we were as evil as Sodom and Gomorrah. So we shrugged our shoulders, dragged our feet, and left the adults to contemplate on what they had just heard.
Nevertheless, we mounted an all-out war on the pesky head lice. Our parents told us not to borrow nor lend combs and hats. We were also told not to comb our friends hair, nor allow them to comb ours. If we saw lice in someones hair, we were expected to tell the teacher or a parent. Vigilance and constant hair treatment kept the lice in check and they slowly disappeared. Tantan made a funny, little, straw hat for me, and I wore it all the time to keep lice away from my head. Sometimes, I fell asleep wearing the funny, little hat.
We had a brief relief from the head lice before we were confronted by swarms of mosquitoes with voracious appetites. We knew about mosquitoes, but we had never seen so many large ones in such great numbers before. The first thing we did was to spray them the way we had always done. But those mosquitoes were different, and it seemed as though they laughed at us whenever we sprayed. A few minutes after we were finished spraying, they would return and bite us, or buzz near our ears. What were we going to do?
Someone came up with a bright idea. Sage bushes! People in the community knew that mosquitoes did not like smoke. So one of our neighbors tried smoking them out of his house by burning sage bushes in a coal pot in his house. After he assured his neighbors that the burning sage bushes did drive the mosquitoes away, everyone began to burn the sage bushes. Some burned the sage bushes inside and outside their houses. Every evening at dusk, plumes of smoke could be seen coming from almost every house in the community. The burning sage bothered many of us, but it was either that or the mosquitoes. In a little while, there were no more sage bushes around the neighborhood. So people substituted other bushes, including white head broom, for the sage.
Soon the regional government began a campaign to get rid of mosquitoes, by sending leaflets to every household. The leaflets instructed us to leave nothing that can hold water around our yards. Cut down all thick bushes around the houses, and call for someone to spray the ponds or water holes in the area. Meanwhile, no one took the time to examine the spray that the government workers used to spray our houses. After spraying, they instructed us to leave our houses closed for about an hour after they were sprayed, and not to inhale the spray:
But, some people, including the workers, did inhale the spray, and thought nothing of it. Several years passed before people began to suffer as a result of the spray. Some workers suffered from DDT poison and many of them died from various cancers. Local people who did not take heed, suffered from various misdiagnosed ailments or unknown diseases. Several women delivered deformed babies. DDT spray was banned from our country after members of our government heard of the world-wide outcry against it.
Plague number five did not harm us physically, but it devastated our economy. When the roosters and hens began to drop dead from their roosts in the trees, Tantan and some of the neighbors went around asking if there would be no end to our calamity. Almost everyone raised chickens for food, as well as for cash. When the economy was slow or downright bad, we would sell a hen or two. When the fowls continued to drop like ripe fruits off trees, we became alarmed. Except for a few, many of the chickens would look healthy during the day. The few that looked droopy, were separated from the healthy ones and treated. But the next morning they would still linger while many of the healthy ones died. No one counted the number of dead chickens that people buried. They were probably in the thousands.
Surprisingly, many of the treated, sick chickens recovered. Then it became clear that all hens, roosters and baby chicks should be treated with the same treatment. I dont remember what it was, but I believe that the treatment was a mixture of some sort of oil with something else. It worked, and the rest of the chickens recovered.
Mr. John Kull was the only person in our community who was foolhardy enough to eat the sick chickens. In response to a question on why he didnt get sick from eating the sick chickens, Mr. Kull replied, Dem grass out dere is good medicine. Ah grind some of the grass in me yard and squeeze the juice down the fowl throat. And dey would get better. Man, ah fry dem. Ah bake dem. Ah stew dem. Ah live like a king, and ah never get sick. Look at me, ah still here. Isnt dat someting?
So Mr. Kull, continued the questioner, do you believe that grass alone can heal the chickens? What else did you give them?
Dat is me secret, man. You want to know me secret, eh. I tell you. Is TLC, replied Mr. Kull.
TLC? questioned the man.
Jes good ole TLC, muttered Mr. Kull walking away.
The chicken plague was over. It had devastated the communitys chicken stock, but the people remained stalwart. We had lived through many of lifes challenges, some of them deadly. It was time to get back to the business of living. The whisperers and rumor mongers went back to their trade, the fishermen and fisherwomen to theirs, the small farmers to theirs, and the witchcraft workers to theirs.
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