Malaria in Me

I recently took a malaria rapid diagnostic test when I was sick and the result was negative. Yay! But did I ever tell you about the time I actually got malaria?

April 2011. I haven't had a headache this bad in YEARS.

I took some pain killers and closed my eyes, hoping sleep would take the pain away. I awoke the next morning to sun highlighting sections of my hut. The headache was gone. Great, back to work.

A week later, I came down with a really bad case of the flu. Or what I thought was the flu. As I started walking to the clinic from my house, my body felt like I was going in slow motion. I was walking in a blizzard, fighting against strong wind and freezing cold. But no such thing existed. Something was wrong. My body won over my stubborn persistence to walk to the clinic and I retreated home. With the wind knocked right out of me, I collapsed on the floor of my hut.

 

Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test: cassette, reagent, pipette, needle prick, and alcohol swap

I looked at the cassette sideways, sliding it back and forth in my hand. This can't be... right? A line appeared under P. falciparum on the cassette. Hm, I must've done something wrong. I guess I'll use the other one. So, I repeated the process with the second cassette. The second cassette had an identical result.

Unglamorously Yours: Poop in a Hole

Interestingly enough, while I was writing this entry, I Googled "poop in a hole" and one of the first suggestions on the search bar was "poop in a hole peace corps." I'm glad Google understands that this matter is always trending in a PCVs life.

Party time!

"We all float down here and when you're down here, you'll float too." - Pennywise the dancing clown from Steven King's IT

I know it's disgusting but there's no other way to talk about this. Your survival in a rural area depends on knowing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You've heard the saying "everyone bleeds blood"? Well, guess what? Everyone poops too. It's one of humanity's universal truths. Beautiful people, average-looking people; Black, White, Brown; religious, non-religious; the rich and the poor. As a person traveling around rural parts of a country, whether you're working in the field for years or just visiting for a week, you might have to poop in a hole.

On Friendships, Strangeships, and Things in Between

I'm always thinking about relationships because underneath my serious, New Yawker expression, I care about the people that help manage the ebb and flow of my time in Zambia.

Friendships:  The seasons change and friends stick around even during rain season. And no matter how long rain season is, they're there for you and you're there for them. Distance doesn't silence you and you're never at a loss for words the next time you communicate. 

Thanks to Facebook era, people slip acquaintances into the friends category sometimes. Which is cool, I guess. No one wants to hurt anyone's feelings and tell them the limited extent of their relationship. It might not matter to some who calls what whom and yadda yadd yah. It's not to say that I don't appreciate people that are currently in or have been in my life but I cherish the people that really get to know and understand me and still put up with me anyway.

Stream of Consciousness Travel

I wrote this while traveling.

Long road trips. I love them and I hate them just the same. I love them because of I love to travel. Travel gives you the chance to see and experience new things. My family's regular migrations from New York to South Carolina are enjoyable because you can see how much the backdrop changes: from tall skyscrapers and concrete to tall trees and open land. So why do I hate them? After 16 hours in a car, my body contorts like a zombie in Michael Jackson's Thriller video.