Saturday morning we woke up early to take a trip to a nice area of Perth called Sorrento. It is on the nicest part of the ocean, and there are many multi-million dollar homes on the water. There is also the Aquarium of Western Australia - AQWA.
The Aquarium is one of the largest in the entire country and has exhibits based on the different areas of the coast associated with the state of Western Australia (half of the country). The coolest part is the giant shark and devil ray tank in which visitors walk through a tube that goes up, down, and around just above the bottom of the tank. The tube is all glass, so that you can see the marine life on all four sides.
It is very cool to see sharks charge at you, giant turtles, swim away from rays the size of two people. There is also a touch pool where you can pet rays, starfish, fish, and tiger sharks. Rays feel way different than you would think - not slimy at all, rather rough almost like wet sand paper. There is an exhibition area, croc area, and many others.
There is also a big shopping area completely built over the water in a little bay called Hillary's. There are some fun shops as well as places to eat and we spent some time there wandering around before we headed home.
Now for the bad news that we found out today... a member of the house was found to be infected with scabies. Now incase you do not know what that is, it is a bug, actually a mite, that gets in and burrows under your skin and then moves around under your skin. Your body has an allergic reaction to this and it becomes very painful and itchy. He went to the doctor today and was diagnosed, but you usually do not get symptoms until about 3 or 4 weeks after you contract it. Now for the worst part-- it is one of the most easily transmitted illnesses in existence and obviously it makes it very contageous. If you have any contact with a person whatsoever you are almost guarenteed to get it - and your body cannot fight it off. Only medication that you begin when symptoms show can do anything about it, and you must wash everything that you have.
One girl here said that an outbreak occured at her school, and the school had to throw out every desk and bed in the dorm because they could not stop the outbreak.
It is like a death watch here. All of us have had contact many times with this person, but we are not showing symptoms yet. We know it is almost 100% assured that we too will get the painful and itchy condition. The problem is that the RAs in the dorm are not taking the condition seriously, and think the doctor was wrong. Students are a little angry at the response to the problem (the only response is that he will not have dish duty any more).
Yay- I get to look forward to that in the next few weeks, and if it plays out right I just may be on spring break when it happens. We are all hoping against hope that the doctor was wrong and that it is not scabies. It takes about two weeks to get well if you do not get reinfected by not washing and scrubing everything, and if one person gets it again we may very well all get it again.
Lets hope it could be something else.
In the morning early is the kayaking trip that I have been planning for a group of 14, so I have to get up very early.
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I have had kids in my class get scabies. It is true that it is very contagious, but one time one other child got infected and the other no one else. You have to be diligent on washing careful all the time and frequently.
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