Marco removing what we thought was a sliver from Maria's foot. Below: Marco swimming with fresh water dolphins.
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Maria had a sliver in her foot from that afternoon when we were swimming with the freshwater dolphins. She wasn't able to remove it and asked Marco to try. Marco was finally able to pull the top of the sliver out of Maria's foot. But instead of being just a tiny piece, a string of fine web, similar to a spiders web, stretched between the piece and her foot. With a second pair of tweezers, Marco wound more and more web out of the growing hole in Maria's foot. Finally, he reached the end, and was able to dig out the rest of the object, disinfect and seal the wound. Inquiring about what it could have been, our host said she was very familiar with the slivers from her own children's feet. They call the critter that stabs the egg sacs into animal tissue a Nigua. If Maria had ignored the sliver, the eggs would have hatched, and then the doctor would have had to cut out all of the infected tissue, possibly resulting in the loss of the bit between her big and second toe. Needless to say, we were very vigilant for other suspicious slivers, and always wore our sandals in the water!

The aquatic wildlife of this area is descended from salt water ancestors, as the area was once a huge ocean basin that has since been raised and rained upon for so long that the water turned from salt to fresh over a long slow period of time. As the salt was washed out to sea, the animals adapted to the fresh water. So, though we were in the high mountain rainforests we swam with dolphins, and had to shuffle our feet for stingrays.

Click here for a doctor's detailed resource for how to remove difficult slivers - In the field, we use sterilized (flame and time to cool), fine-pointed tweezers to remove all of a sliver. Afterwards, we cover the hole with Neosporin (if not available, we could use salt and tobacco) and bandage to avoid infection (changing these at least daily). Maria's wound was sealed with Superglue, as it was small and the environment too wet to be friendly towards bandages. Note: This procedure is written from experience and not from proper medical training. It is not medical advice. If you are unsure about how to safely remove a sliver, seek medical attention if possible.