Tenemos piojos...

   We have lice. Angelina had been complaining about mosquito bites on the back of her neck for a while. Finally, she had a girl in her class inspect and the truth was revealed. It was discovered that Louis had them also. Christelle successfully treated her sons in France with rubbing alcohol, so we first tried that. Once the hair and scalp is saturated a shower cap is donned, with a headband to keep it in place, for a period of no less than 1 1/2 hours followed by a thorough shampooing. It did not work. The alcohol was 85% so we shopped around and found some that was 96% and tried it again, to no avail. Angelina’s friend Isabelle said she uses coconut oil because the shampoo for lice from the pharmacy is very irritating to the skin. So we tried coconut oil for a couple of hours and the only result after all this was Christelle got the lice also somewhere along the way. Apparently the lice are as resilient as the locals.

   Peter felt immune. Maybe the lice jumped onto his head and felt naked (hair loss) or did not like the straw like quality and abandoned ship, so he continued to give hugs with confidence. Next on the list of possible remedies for everybody else was olive oil. Four hours under the cap plus extensive shampooing after made for luxurious hair but was not an effective treatment. Christelle was talking of trying the alcohol again one morning. The theory is that the treatments were effective at killing the lice, but did nothing to the eggs which would hatch and resume the cycle of feeding and laying eggs. Doing repeated treatments every few days for a week or 10 days may be the cure, but it is time consuming and quite messy. Peter left for yoga class thinking about how futile it all seemed, when he felt a tiny piercing pain on his scalp-the dreaded omen. When he got home Angelina, the specialist at identification, took a look and made it official-the whole family has lice. Peter tried the alcohol one time, which he found somewhat irritating, and started having thoughts of shaving his head.

   The next time we dropped off the laundry, we asked Enid, the laundry lady, what to do for lice. She said one particular brand of shampoo from the pharmacy was gentle and easy to use. So we decided to go for it even though it contains a pesticide which is contrary to our organic beliefs. So what-the lice must die. We all did the treatment last week and a follow-up a few days ago to kill all the eggs that have hatched. The Ecuadoran version of lice are very tiny and obviously resist treatment. We hope it works because we are tired of the Itchy and Scratchy show.

UPDATE:
After trying the lice shampoo for three weeks, we came to the conclusion that it did not work at all. We were still covered in lice. It turns out that lice shampoo here is very old school. Permethrin does not kill lice any more. Peter and Louis decided to have their heads shaved.

A hair cut costs between $2.50 and $5 in Vilcabamba.

The hair dresser gave us the scoop about lice. You put any edible oil on your hair and comb it with a special lice comb that has very fine teeth to remove the lice and detach the eggs. Then you go wash it all off in the shower. Do this 2 times a week until they are all gone. Angelina and Christelle started right away.

UPDATE: olive oil works but it is still messy. We tried white vinegar mixed with a few drops of grapefruit seed extract ("GSE"). We soaked our hair with this mixture (absolutely avoid contact with eyes), thoroughly combed our hair with the lice comb and let it dry as is. It is not as labor intensive as olive oil. We washed our hair the next day. Not only does vinegar make your hair gorgeous, but also it dissolves the outer shell of the nits. Combined with the GSE, we think it may also kill the lice. We repeated this treatment every three days until we were free of lice. It is best to also wash your sheets and pillowcases very often. If your mattress or carpet is infested, then you would also have to steam them with a clothe steamer or floor steamer to kill the nits and lice in them. So, if you plan on putting your kids in school in Latin America, bring your own metal lice comb (from "Walgreens") and silicone-based lice shampoo from your home country since you will not find any of these here.

UPDATE: We did get rid of lice with the vinegar, and it was easy. But we still used the silicone shampoo just in case. This is what we came up with so that the kids would not get reinfested at school:

Louis will be wearing his hat and we bought Angelina a wide headband. She also wears a pony tail. When her hair is long enough, we will do a braid to further limit infestation. We should be good to go!