And my first African illness is...

…Malaria! Yup, blood parasites have taken over my body. Note to all: malaria prophylaxes are a waste of money. Last semester, 3 or 4 foreign students got malaria, on all the different anti-malarial medications you can get to come to Tanzania. This semester, 3 of us have gotten it while taking anti-malarials. Most of my friends haven’t taken theirs for months, and most of those jerks are malaria free. One friend who stopped taking his medicine did get it, but his case wasn’t even as bad as mine, and mine is fairly mild. Luckily, I caught it early. One of the girls who had it a few weeks ago got to the point where she was delirious and couldn’t see straight. For me, as long as I stay in my room, take my medicine, and sleep a lot, I feel alright. When I make the journey to class, the cafeteria, or even the fruit stand 100 yards away, it wears me out. The worst part is coming back up the six flights of stairs to my room. My fever spikes, I get light-headed, and I have to take a nap afterwards. I’m lucky I haven’t gotten too nauseas to eat, though. It could be a lot worse.

The thing about being sick in a third world country is that you are in a third world country. When your body feels like it’s on fire, there is no air conditioned area you can run to (not that you would run there anyway…), and of course the one time you’d welcome the chilly shower temperature, there’s no running water. And since there is no running water, you can’t flush the toilet on your frequent trips to the bathroom. Although, Friday was a glorious day because the water did come on; I was able to wash my pillow case and the kanga/ sarong I’d been wearing for days, both of which were pretty sweaty and smelly.

Also, I just found out that my roommate has typhoid fever. What a pair of wagongwa (sick people) we are. I saw some medicine lying on her desk and asked if she was sick.
“Yes, a little. But not as sick as you.”
“Aw, what’s wrong?”
“My tonsils are infected.”
“Pole.” Pole (pronounced pole-ay) is used all the time. It means ‘sorry,’ or ‘condolences.’ People say it if you are sick, if you trip, if you spill your drink, etc.
“Yeah, I have typhoid, too.”
“WHAT?!?!” That one took me a little off guard. She was pretty non-chalant about it. She seems to be doing pretty well, though. We both sleep a lot. I think I’d rather have malaria.

Anyway, I’m lucky to have Sarah around to take such good care of me. I’ve finished my medicine and I definitely feel better than I did a few days ago, but I’m still waiting to be able to go to the cafeteria without feeling like my body is going to give out. Hopefully soon. In the meantime, I’m sure I’ll be doing a lot of reading, watching a lot of movies, and feeding my new intense hatred of mosquitoes.