Lichinga, MozambiqueSaturday, January 30, 2010
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Matekenya
In Africa, there are different kinds of things that we deal with in our lives as missionaries. One of those things that we deal with is called, “Matekenya.” Matekenya is a kind of worm that makes its’ way from the African soil to the human body, usually the feet. The thing is, you don’t know when this creature enters your body, you only know after it has borrowed into your skin and has laid its’ eggs. One day, you may notice a small black spot on your foot, that almost looks like a pimple.
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Jonas is the first of our family to become intimate friends with the Matekenya. He told us the other day that he was experiencing pain in his foot as he was walking around. As we looked at the bottom of his foot, it looked like what we had seen on other people like Matekenya. We had Victo, a local Mozambican missionary take a look at it and sure enough, it was Matekenya. Victo has removed Matekenya from our missionary friends, Jesse and Tanya before, and this is just something that the people of Africa deal with. So skillfully, Victo removed the Matekenya from Jonas’ foot. In the pictures you see, the white thing being extracted from Jonas’ foot isn’t the Matekenya worm itself, but a huge egg sack that the Matekenya lays inside the foot. If the egg sack is broken while being removed, many more Matekenya will soon hatch within the foot. Although this extraction may look very painful, the Matekenya actually destroys nerves in the foot in the area that it has dug its’ hole (although Jonas felt some pain). The extraction of the Matekenya from Jonas’ foot was successful.
Matekenya BEFORE extraction
Matekenya BEING extracted
Matekenya DURING extraction
Matekenya AFTER extraction
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Jesse, Tanya and Victo had to extract over 40 Matekenya from a man’s foot in one of the Yao villages. His foot literally looked like hundreds of craters. Untreated, Matekenya actually kills people in Africa. Hopefully you weren’t eating your breakfast when you read this and looked at these pictures.
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Jesse, Tanya and Victo had to extract over 40 Matekenya from a man’s foot in one of the Yao villages. His foot literally looked like hundreds of craters. Untreated, Matekenya actually kills people in Africa. Hopefully you weren’t eating your breakfast when you read this and looked at these pictures.
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Christian Young
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