Blood donation in the jungle

During my first weekend in India, I took a little jungle expedition between rain showers. When I got back home and kicked off my sandals, I noticed what looked like a tiny stick stuck to the top of my foot. Except it wouldn’t brush off. I reached down to pick it off. It wouldn’t be picked. When I dug in with my nails, it squirmed.
It was burrowing into my skin.
Freaking out commenced.
While in full panic mode, I somehow got it off my foot and onto my fingers. The little bastard was like glue, though, and only through an elaborate combination of shaking, scraping, and cursing did I finally fling it onto the ground.
It scrunched up sadly on the dirt, to maybe a centimeter in length. Its hateful little body was full of blood. MY blood! I reached out with my sandal to squish it, but it sensed me with its leech-sense and stretched out like a hungry baby bird, suddenly a full two inches long. (I realize these are not impressive figures, but two inches of anything that wants to suck your blood is two too many, in my opinion.)
Opting not to kill it, I spent the next half hour compulsively checking my ankles, feet and toes for more black sticks. Then I declared personal jihad on leeches.

Later, I learned that leeches have no eyes but they actually can detect body heat. Also, they don’t burrow into your skin, they just bite and hang on with amazing strength. And now, a couple of weeks after that incident, I’ve begun to accept leeches as a part of life in the tropics, at least until monsoons end (two more weeks, two more weeks...) You go outside, you get a leech, you pick it off and bleed a bit. Then you put on more mosquito repellant before they, too, follow the blood scent and want a piece of the action.
I’ve also discovered new ways of dealing with my friends the leeches, the best of which was taught to me by Sunita’s farmhand, Manju. Upon returning from a walk one day, I was doing the leech dance on her porch (fingers stuck under my velcro sandal strap, one foot off the ground, hopping, cursing under my breath). He happened to walk by just as I’d removed it and looked at me curiously. “Leech,” I said, pointing to the ground (our communication is rather limited due to the language barrier). He nodded, went into the house, and came back with a lighter. Then he proceeded to roast the little sucker with a satisfying sizzling noise, while his four-year-old son and I looked on in equal awe and fascination.

Incredibly, I’d actually planned on coming here in June, when the monsoons start. I was crushed when I was told I would have to wait until fall because Sunita had fallen ill. Now I realize that while it’s good to have the experience of living with monsoons, had I come in summer I would have been eaten by fungus, bugs, spiders and lecherous foot-mongers before I could even hop on a plane back home. In September, it still rains off and on throughout the day, but according to Sunita, this is just a drizzle. In a couple of weeks, the puddles will dry up, my clothes will dry out and lose the rotting smell, and the leeches will greatly diminish.

Then, tick season starts.