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imagined that at every moment, a mosquito was on me, near me, or—paranoid from the incessant whining high in my ear—inside me. Exiting the mosquito net in the morning, the first bite is an outrage, the second an insult, the third an annoyance, the fourth, or millionth, a bitter defeat. Eventually, my skin stopped reacting to the mosquito saliva, did not swell, hardly itched. But the humiliation of the initial prick is eternal, the insertion of the microscopic proboscis a violation, a theft of blood to perpetuate a species that is a bane. Mosquitoes steal their lives from us.

The Guyanese word for the cumulative effect of tropical indignities is “stink.” Stink is curdled sweat, sweat that has turned rancid. It is every drop of a day’s working, sitting, breathing sweat, from the first beads as you walk out in the morning, to the most recent emission from your exhausted pores. Stink is about exposure: the battles with light and heat that demand carrying a handkerchief to mop your face and covering babies’ heads with knit caps. It is the lost tranquility from tangles with flies, the lost sanity from encounters with mosquitoes. Stink is a wringing out of your body until the worst smells emerge, and, if not purged, the worst disease.

There is but one redemption. To reclaim the unscathed body that emerged into the world that morning, you must bathe. Bathing happens in small concrete rooms under an open pipe gushing only cold water. During blackouts, when water does not come to the pump, it is done from a bucket. It is a singular pleasure.

This is how the Guyanese taught me to do it: First, let the cold water run over you. Wash off the top layer of powder and perfume, blood, cow dung, mucus, tears, mango juice, and minibus exhaust. Heat draws down; blood recedes from the surface. Turn off the water and soap your skin to a thick lather. Do not overlook an inch or a crack because here is where the rash will begin. Scrub the dust from your hair. After you are thick with foam, munificent suds cresting, let the icy water run its numbing deluge. A simple alchemy—skin, water, soap—but it never fails to restore the memory of that first skin, before the burns and scars, before the day.

This cycle of daily physical corruption and ablution became a marker of my two years in Guyana, proof of the regularity of miracles. My mind was educated before I came to this country, but my body was not. I had never experienced such relentless exposure to the extremes of the natural world. Surviving the physical environment was not just a personal quest, it was part of my work. In the end, the lessons were simple: rest, bathe, heal. Take the world into your body, and then, as gently as you can, let it go.

Katherine Jamieson is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Programs, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Ms., The Writer’s Chronicle, Meridian, and The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2011. “Educating the Body,” is part of a longer manuscript about her experiences living in Guyana. Read more of her essays, articles, and stories at katherinejamieson.com.

COLETTE O’CONNOR

Sun Valley with Dad

She gets another lesson in how to be.

“IT’S LIKE I’M THE DOG,” SAYS DAD IN THE BACK SEAT. “I never know what we’re going to do until we do it.” My sister is at the wheel and I’m riding shotgun as we pull off I-80 east outside Elko so the Flying J truck stop can refuel us with gas and also salty cashews. At age eighty-three Dad has lost his hearing to the extent, say the doctors, a 747 can rev for take-off next to him and one ear would not even know; the other might have a hint. So it’s a surprise, our stop, since Dad missed the discussion leading up to it. But he is game for whatever adventure the Flying J flings at us.

“You girls get whatever you like,” he says and rolls down the window to test the temperature of the Elko air. I flash on our childhood fox terrier, Molly, who on the road loved to sniff strange climes from the car. “This is your trip.”

Our trip is a ski weekend in Sun Valley. It’s a weekend