On Wednesday evening, just about lights-out time (11:00 PM) I get word from one of the adult leaders in our sleeping room, "Rob, you are needed on the girls' side two minutes ago!" This is highly unusual, as we are told early and often, in no uncertain terms never to cross over into the "girls' side." I step out into the hall and someone asks me to grab some of the guys and help out in the girls' sleeping room because "there are maggots!" One of our young ladies had opened her sleeping bag and was about to get into it when she noticed little worm-like bugs crawling on it. It was all downhill from there. Other girls started to notice bugs in or near their bags and suitcases, and pandemonium ensued. By the time I got there, most of the room was evacuated and girls were piled in the hallway, shaking, crying, or sometimes just half asleep on their feet. Most of the adults and a few brave Youth started the process of going through everyone's sleeping bags, pillows and everything else that was on the floor, checking for bugs. When each item was cleared we would hand it to the Youth who would move it to a different room.
It came out after a while that these were not maggots, exactly but were some other kind of fly larvae. I'm still not sure what kind, and I'm not about to Google it, for fear of what I might find :) They were gross, no question about it. Some were more grossed out by it than others, understandably so.
It took some time to get everyone to calm down enough to get back in their rooms and into bed. Some, reportedly, never did sleep that night. I've included the only picture I could find of our host site below. It doesn't show much except, perhaps, the age of the building. That does not explain the larvae, however, as that could only be explained by the bacon hamburger we found on the shelf in the girls' room! You should have seen that thing, it was teeming!
Life goes on, we survived! The staff were really great about helping to clean up. The site director was not pleased, as you might well imagine, but she got over it. So, if your Youth is still having a hard time looking at a hamburger, please grant them some grace!
Rob
