Bug Problems

‘Oh gosh… I hope she comes back soon. I’m totally gonna be late for work.’ I thought to myself as I sat on my doorstep waiting for my empregada, Raquia. ‘What exactly did she say she was getting again?’

Originally, I never wanted an empregada. I thought it was a horrific idea to hire someone to cook and clean for me when I could just do all that myself. And when I thought about it in terms of a person from a wealthy country coming to a less developed country and hiring a ‘servant’… well… No way, Jose.

Well, long story short, I ‘inherited’ Raquia from the volunteer who lived here before me, meaning that essentially not having her work for me would be firing her and cutting off her main source of income. So I decided that it wouldn’t be so bad as long as I had her on a light schedule, coming in three times a week to draw my water, sweep my yard, and do my dishes only. Of course, I didn’t really realize at the time that empregadas can come in handy for other things as well, like extracting bugs from places on your feet that you can’t reach for instance…

I waited for probably five minutes on my stoop with my pant legs rolled up as I examined the bottom of my feet once again. Just a few days before, I had to cut open the callus looking bumps on two of the toes on my left foot in order to get the maticenhas’ eggsack out. What’s a maticenha? Well, it’s basically a small bug that likes to burrow under the toe nails, and apparently under the ridge of feet as well, so it can lay and store its eggs. It lives in the sand, is more common in the winter time, and it was apparently in both of my feet this time around.

As I studied the small black holes in the same place on both of my feet, Raquia finally came back.

“Ok, I found some, Menino.” She said as she held out her hand to reveal… crab claws. Yes, the claws of a crab… in her hands… to be used as tweezers in extracting this garbage from my foot.

“Umm… where… where did you get them?” I said trying to sound casual and hide my hesitancy.

“Oh, one of your neighbors had them left over from dinner.” She said as she grabbed my left foot with one hand and held the crab claws in the other.

‘Whatever,’ I thought, ‘At this point… let’s just do this already…’

As she broke through my skin and tugged at the eggsack, it definitely hit a nerve or two. ‘Gosh, could that crap actually be attached to something in my foot? Or is it just floating around?’ Well, whatever the case, Raquia pulled out everything from my left foot rather quickly. Then, she held it up for me to see: a black, charcoal looking thing about the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen.

“Is that it?” I asked Raquia.

“Yeah… well, at least I hope so.” she said as she grabbed my right foot.

More sharp, momentary pain. More clicking sounds as she clawed through my foot.

A few minutes later, she pulled out the other egggsack. This one was wayyy more disgusting: it was about the size of one fourth of a dime and its texture resembled that of a slug or a snail.

“Good Lord!” I myself exclaim in Portuguese. “Well… thank you Raquia…”

She just smiled and said, “Your welcome… I do think I’m going to keep these crab claws somewhere though because Menino seems to always have problems with maticenhas…”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh I hope that’s not true!”