warning: don't read this post if you get squeamish

If anyone recalls me bragging in early February "Mosquitos never bite me" "I haven't had a single bite" well that came back to bite me (excuse the bad pun)

This week I've gone through quite a lot of pain in my arm as a kind of bite / infection developed and grew. As it got larger, the pain increased and spread around into a circle of redness around my arm.

I'm going to be honest I had tears in my eyes at the start of the week once I'd made the mistake of googling what I saw on my arm and reading all the deathly possibilities - it's never recommended to do that...

However, I asked so many people here what they thought it was. "It's a mango fly" "It's a bot fly" "It's a maggot" "It's just pus" (gross) "It's a boil"

So this really didn't help me know what was growing inside of me. I just prayed it would be all OK and that I return to the UK with one arm instead of two and also that I'd be less scared. From then on I wasn't even scared anymore, I just accepted something disgusting and painful was happening in my arm.

I kept telling myself to calm down because it will be gone soon and then I'll have a nice gruesome story to tell people.

My dad has always been fascinated with the bot fly, the videos on YouTube are one of his many ice breakers or conversation starters with anyone we go and see (as well as the walking cow who's head got cut off by a train) (people love it when we visit..) so the irony of me having a potential living thing in my arm was almost funny.

Anne (Australian lady who runs he primary school) was concerned today as it was the worst it had been in six days. She took me to Al Shafa which is the best hospital (some are awful here)

The doctor looked the mountain on my arm, exaggeration, and told me it was definitely just an infected wound. I felt weirdly let down as I'd gone through a LOT of pain all week and the outcome was just an "infection"?!?!

He took me into a room and he and the nurse cleaned it.

He then pulled out a small knife and said "I will now make a small incision" (I looked horrified) and then just cut it open - stop reading if you don't like nasty things.

He squeezed and I wont go into detail but the infection was relieved. Anne and I definitely saw a maggot shaped thing but the doctor insisted it was just fluid. I think he was just trying to save himself from looking like he was wrong at the start because I know what I saw. (My Granny says that doctors here tend to be wary of telling mzungus (white people) anything bad as it's embarrassing for them so I don't know this is possible too). We are both very sure that is what came out though...

Anyway after a painful time at the hospital it's all gone and OK now. I now feel like a true African (even though I still get scared of cockroaches in my bathroom)

And PLEASE if you read this and are feeling put off coming to Africa, don't be. It's not that common, and if you come here I would put money on you not getting a maggot visitor like I did. I've spoke to a load of people here and even most Africans apparently don't even have it. I guess I was just unlucky and shouldn't have bragged about not getting mozzy bites. :-)

The video doesn't show any of the gross bits: