Bed Bug Attack

Yes, you read that correctly. BED BUGS.  I’ve been traveling the world for almost two years and have never personally had to deal with them.  

After coming back from Pokot the first time, my host said I was lucky I didn’t run into bed bugs.  The thought never even ran through my head… and I slept in a lot of different places.  

My next time in Pokot was a whole different experience.  We stayed in a small village the first night. It was a cute and cozy hut.  Paranoid, I checked my bed and saw nothing.  The next day we moved to the church’s housing.  When Elinor took a nap in the afternoon she said she found a bed bug.  We looked at the beds but didn’t see any.  That night we decided that just be safe we would sleep on the floor.  I even looked some things up online that tea tree oil deters them.  I put some around me/on me.  All rookie mistakes.  

That night it poured.  If you’ve ever slept in a house with a tin roof and nothing to dampen the sound….it’s incredibly loud and painful to the ears. I put in my earplugs and shut my eyes and then…. I fell asleep… but within two hours I woke to something crawling on my neck. I grabbed it and pulled it off.  I found my flashlight and looked around me…. there they were.  Eyes staring back at me… on my pillow….on my mattress…just crawling all over the bed frames.

On the inside I was freaking out. But I felt like I calmly handled myself.  I smushed them and smashed them and covered myself in more tea tree oil and prayed that they would stay away. 

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.  I felt them crawling on me. They were nice and plump when I squished them which meant they were having a feast.  

In the morning I had bites all over my face, neck, and arms.  And if you know anything about bed bugs, they don’t just bite once.  It’s in a cluster of three. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t my day to teach the girls because I was tired and my peace was rocked (even though Elinor later commented that I handled everything well and it didn’t even seem like they effected me!—that’s the grace of God!)

We hung EVERYTHING out in the sun hoping to kill them all. At the end of the day… I still found a live bed bug every now and then on my things. I had a bag that my backpack goes in so I shoved my things in there. Over the next few days, I put this bag out in the sun. It acted as an oven and I found dead bed bugs after doing this process!  Thank you Pokot sun and thank you Lord for a brain!

It also helped we moved our sleeping location to in the church on a cement floor.  The next few nights I got beautiful sleep.  The days just consisted of very itchy bites.

When we got back to Kigali my bag stayed outside for 3-4 days before EVERYTHING was thoroughly washed.  

So now at every new location I do a little check 😉