A day or two later, with only a few hours notice, American dependents were
evacuated to Greece while the Six-Day War sorted itself out. Our four
children went with me along with many of their friends and their mothers to
Kifissia, a resort area just outside of Athens. We arrived there on Friday of
Memorial Day Weekend. Only on Tuesday was I able to visit an Air Force
dispensary and get medication (NOT kerosene) for the lice problem. By this
time, both boys and several other children had lice. Between tours and trips
to ancient and historic sites all over Greece, courtesy of the new junta, we
shampooed, combed for nits, tried to keep children’s heads separated, and
shaved the boys hair off. At the end of the war, diplomatic relations were
severed, and we evacuees were joined by our husbands.
For some time we had had late June reservations on the S.S. United States to
take us on home leave, and we were able to keep them. That summer, we spent a
few weeks visiting my mother in Annapolis, a few weeks in Fairmont,
West Virginia, with John’s parents, and for shorter periods we visited
relatives in Chautauqua, Binghamtom, Philadelphia, and the Jersey Shore. For
this whole time we tried to deal with the lice using nonprescription lotions
and shampoos purchased in drugstores wherever we were.
In September, we moved into our house in McLean, and the children started
school. One of my best friends from Cairo was staying temporarily in a 2½
bedroom apartment at the Presidential Gardens in Alexandria with her husband,
5 children, and 2 dogs, awaiting the time when their newborn son would be old
enough to travel to Beirut, their next post. I invited John, their 3-year-old, to stay with us for a while. He got lice. Our wonderful neighbors on
both sides of us got lice. Their friends who came to play got lice. We were
all lousy! My mother got lice. She was mortified, of course. Her favorite
hairdresser did help her and promised not to breathe a word to a soul.
Everyone viewed lice as a filth disease and a disgrace. Nobody talked about
lice! Then lots of children in Cooper and Franklin Sherman schools got lice.
The nurses examined all heads. Infested children were quarantined. The man
next door was very irritated; he had once been a German POW and was afraid
lice could spread typhus. Some affected friends of my other neighbor angrily
cried that this was worse than thrush!
I needed two doctors. The first was young and unreasonable; the second said
that the first was a new doctor and had never seen a louse. Up and down our
street, everyone worked together. All heads were washed with special
medicated shampoo twice daily. All linens were washed daily. All clothes
were washed daily. All rugs were vacuumed daily. We prevailed.
Meanwhile, in Beirut, Marilyn and her five children, ages 7 years to 7 weeks,
now had the problem and had visited the embassy doctor. He marveled that he
hadn’t seen lice in many years, and suddenly he had two episodes, one from
Washington and one from Athens. But, he mused, “there couldn’t be any
connection.” Right! Marilyn and her household help had to do all that
laundering by hand in the bathtub.
Twenty years passed. Mother made an offhand remark about lice in front of one
of our friends, a neighbor of hers in Annapolis. Maxine said, “Alex had lice
one summer. We had to cut her hair.” That was the summer of 1967, and Katie
had been a frequent guest of Alex’s while we stayed with mother. Since
learning about Alex, I’ve wondered if anybody else that we visited up and down
the East Coast had an outbreak that year. I haven’t actually inquired yet,
but the children were invited several times to play with the children of
John’s oldest boyhood friend in Fairmont. I’d be willing to bet I know the
answer.
n late May 1967, as Egypt was building up to the June war with Israel, our
daughter Katie came home from the second grade in Cairo complaining of an
itchy scalp. A close look at her head verified that many tiny insects were
congregating there. I personally had had no experience whatsoever with this
malady, didn’t know of anyone who had, and knew nothing about what I should do
next. Since the problem was in the hair, it occurred to me to take Kate to
the beauty parlor at the Maadi Club, not far from our house. I have no
difficulty resurrecting the scene that ensued as I showed our problem to the
young male owner of the shop, and the three customers sitting under the driers
rose in unison and ran outside!
Our nanny Noel made the diagnosis of headlice
and prescribed the traditional local cure, which was to soak the hair in
kerosene and wrap the head in a bandanna for the night. After a shampoo in
the morning, Katie should be rid of the pests, and life should be normal
again. But as fate would have it, life wasn’t to be normal again for a very
long time. Katie didn’t like the kerosene treatment; it had a strong
unpleasant odor and it smarted. In the morning we shampooed and sought out a
young Egyptian pediatrician who confirmed that kerosene was the treatment of
choice.
© B. Hopkins 1999, All Rights Reserved
The appearance of head lice isn’t always a laughing matter. For practical complementary therapies for treating head lice, visit Lowana Veal’s Headlice page, one of many educational aromatherapy pages created by AGORA, an international group of volunteers.