Chagas and Texts

While researching Nicaragua before arriving here, nothing terrified me quite as much as learning about chagas.  It is a disease most often transmitted by bugs we call chinches in Nicaragua.  The bug will bite its victims while they sleep, usually on the face, and then leave their feces in the bug bite, because why just be satisfied with sucking the blood of your victims when you can defecate on them as well?

All this is rather unpleasant, and the bite will cause some mild flu-like symptoms, but that is not the terrifying part.  Oh no.  That comes ten or so years later, when the parasite has wrecked havoc on the body's nervous and digestive systems, as well as the heart, which will sometimes just go into arrest.  Imagine it, getting bitten by that bug, not realizing what has happened, and then dying of a heart attack years later.  Now imagine going to live in a place where those bugs live too.

Luckily, my department has a very low rate of chagas, and not many chinches, so I've never worried for my safety...but I still don't like the idea of them being around, which is why I got worried when my friend and fellow volunteer sent me the following text:  I think we had a chagas bug in the house :(

The rest of our conversation went something along the lines of:

Me: Did they take it to the centro to see if it was infected [with chagas]?
Her: No.  Should we do that?
Me: Yes, take it to the health center, you didn't squash it did you?
Her: Yeah, someone took a shoe to it after we chased it outside.
Me: Just don't squish it more, you need it kinda intact for the test.
(five minutes pass...)
Her: It got ran over by a car after they squished it.

At that point, I just started laughing, because of course, that happened.  My friend did eventually take it to the health center for the test to see if it had the chagas parasite in its gut, this is what she said:

On closer inspection, its head is much more rounded.  I showed nurse at the centro the remains and asked if this type of bug carries chagas.  She said no.

And all was right again in the land where death-bearing bugs are run over by cars on a daily basis.