Work and work. and protozoa.
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2006
1
21
24
Trip End
Oct 12, 2007
Kakamega town,
Kenya
Thursday, March 1, 2007
slipping around on the red vinyl seat as the driver sped along towards town, a slight chill shivered up my spine in spite of the pressing heat. i straightened the collar of my black, long-sleeved oxford and adjusted my black-and-white knee-length skirt to block the breeze. we lopped over a speed bump, haphazardly placed in a location that could not possibly serve any purpose. the jolt sent an electric shock through my left sinus and up behind my eyeball, the pressure swelling throughout the entire left side of my skull. where are these headaches coming from?, i asked myself, irritated. the driver took a sharp turn at barclay's bank, among the most opulent buildings in kakamega town with its mirrored windows and squat, regal-looking two-storied architecture. we sped along down an interminable hill, passing the town waterworks on the left and a muslim girls' school on the right. we rounded a corner at the hill's bottom and began climbing again up towards the small private nala hospital and the mobil gas station, my ultimate destination. i glanced at the hospital as we passed, remembering my visits there two weeks ago when my friend tessa was admitted with malaria. they had put her on an IV with glucose and quinine in it, and the heavy iron pole which suspended the drip bag wasn't equipped with wheels, requiring her to pick the whole thing up and walk with it every time she needed to use the restroom. i smiled a little bit as i rode past, remembering her sarcastic narration of the whole event. she had checked out a few days later and left to go on safari, only to be re-admitted at a hospital in nairobi a few days later. poor tessa.
the driver puffed his way up the remaining 10 meters of the hill and rolled to a stop. i slid off the bike and dropped 15 shillings in his hand, looking right-left-right, waiting for a careening matatu to blow past in a cloud of dust and exhaust, and finally crossing the main highway to mumias. on my left appeared the blocky, cheerful blue supaloaf factory, the main production point for all of those thousands of loaves of bread ("never say bread, say supaloaf!", as every package proclaims) scattered throughout the supermarkets and dukas, tiny local shops, of kakamega district. i took a deep breath as i passed it, inhaling deeply the perfume of hundreds of pounds of baking bread which slipped weightlessly from the small, slatlike windows near the top of the edifice. clickclickclick along the ragged pavement in my low black heels. an old toothless mama sat on the dusty ground behind a grimy sheet spread with enormous purply-green avocadoes, their oily skins shining in the sun. at the next intersection, instead of turning left or right to follow the paved road along a row of shops, i continued straight down a narrow dirt path that dipped along a long, steep hill. a band of listless young men loitered at the corner, half-heartedly heckling me as i slipped past. the green plastic folder i gripped in my left hand was growing slick with the sweat of my palm. i was not cold any more. in fact, i was suddenly sweating profusely. i slowed my pace a little as i negotiated the slick hillside, damp with yesterday's heavy rain. the smell of raw sewage drifted up to turn my empty stomach.
it was wednesday, and i'd been working from home for the past 2 days, feeling not quite well. i wasn't sick to my stomach exactly, but had been so nauseous that i hadn't been able to eat aside from a couple ladyfinger bananas and a slice of makeshift toast, charred over the open flame of my gas cooker with the use of two sharp knives as tongs. i'd been running a moderate fever on tuesday, and the left side of my head felt ready to blow out of my skull with the pressure from within. i still wasn't feeling exactly up to par, but i couldn't miss this meeting. i turned a gravelly corner in front of a little duka lazily strewn with promotional posters of various products... "MARA MOJA! headache cure."... "live on the COKE side of life" ... "celtel. making life better." a relatively young woman with countless rows of tiny braids fastened tightly to her skull gave me a cursory glance as i passed within 5 meters of the front of her dark little shop, looked back down at the counter, then did a double take. she whispered a few surprised-sounding words to an unseen person at the back of the shop. i continued to pick my way down this muddy little alley, passing row after row of corrugated metal shacks, goats and calfs with jutting bones grazing uselessly on the occasional sprigs of weeds. a few toddlers with bare feet and browning raggedy t-shirts appeared from behind a low, crumbling concrete wall, nearly tripping over themselves with shock at the sight of me, their eyes growing big as saucers. as soon as they were able to come to their senses, they squealed in unison, "mzungu owayoo!", not even waiting for a reply before repeating the question continuously. from the other side of the street a pair of tired-looking women eyed me shiftily from where they were sprawled out on the damp ground. just to their left rose a small mountain of garbage, spilling from between the shaky frames of two houses, three enormous white-chested crows hopping around seeking out a meal amidst the scraps of plastic bags, crumpled bits of paper, fruit skins, and clean-picked animal bones. a wave of heat rushed over me. again i slowed my pace, knowing that my goal, the community development organization that we work with, was just around the corner. its bright white and green hand-lettered sign sprang up to greet me as i made that final turn, relieved to have arrived.
the meeting went well and as planned, aside from the beads of sweat which materialized behind my earlobes, in the pools of my collarbones, on the backs of my knees as i sat, smiling uncomfortably, reviewing some information with this organization's supervisor. a pair of wretched-looking yellow-and-black striped bees thumped futilely against the window pane, unaware that they would have been better off remaining in the honey-producing hives located in the organization's back room. witnessing their pathetically useless bid for escape suddenly captivated me, and i trailed off, losing whatever point i had been trying to make. i accepted this as a signal and cut the meeting short, shaking hands with the man and stumbling back out into the dust and sunshine.
i had agreed to meet one of our interns for lunch and talk about a very interesting sewing project that she's organizing at her host organization. we were meeting at my favorite restaurant, kakamega dishes, a grimy little hole in the wall, evidently simply an extension of someone's house, where you can get beans and chapati for 40 shillings (60 cents). included with this price is not, evidently, the picking of the beans, which is a necessary pre-cooking process to remove the weevils that have found their way into the bean store. as we settled into conversation, me suddenly feeling chilly again as i struggled to focus on her across the wooden table, i picked up my spoon and began the ritual that begins every meal at kakamega dishes, which is to seek out the (now dead) weevils in the cooked beans and pick them out. i determine how well i've completed this process by how many beans i bite into in a single meal that taste distinctly like dirt (don't lie, you know you've tasted dirt before). these beans are invariably the ones that were previously housing unsuspecting weevils just before they were tossed into a pot of boiling water. the extra protein probably isn't so bad for me anyway.
at any rate, this day was not the day for eating weevil beans. although i was certainly feeling better than the day before, my appetite was still not its usual self. i pushed the pile of swollen red beans around on the plate and took a few unenthusiastic bites. the intern eyed me suspiciously. "you should go get a blood test," she said, scooping up a greasy pile of scrambled egg with a scrap of chapati. well, that hardly seemed necessary. as many times as i'd parroted that same phrase at the interns when they weren't feeling well, it was obvious that this was just a little cold. or maybe a touch of food sickness from that sketchy egg curry i'd eaten on sunday night. to her credit, though, she was fairly convincing given that the clinic was literally one block away and the test only costs 260 shillings (about $4). i agreed that i'd go and we parted ways at the mama watoto supermarket, across the street from a line of sneering bodabodas and a few scattered mamas touting ladyfinger bananas from large, flat, woven baskets.
standing at the counter of the rather elegant-looking lab, i was mesmerized by the striking resemblance of one of the large aquarium's fish to a tiny tiger shark. the medium-set woman behind the counter greeted me with an almost-imperceptible, tight little smile and began gathering my data as i was unable to tear my eyes from the silvery, large-finned fish. how distracted i was today! finally forcing myself to look away as she gently ordered me to take a seat along the low, uncomfortable wooden bench in the narrow waiting room, i shuffled around the corner and pulled the master and margarita out of my bag. how absurd, really. why am i here? i should just go home and rest. i looked across the white-tiled lobby to a small, black plastic wastebasket placed unsystematically a few feet from the door. the thin black plastic trash bag that should have been lining it slumped impotently in the basket, and several dozen lumps of bloodied cotton swabs were tossed carelessly on top. i grimaced a little at the thought of what those swabs of blood might contain. at last the unmistakable cry of "leeelian!" was heard from around the corner in the same low, smooth voice that had greeted me at the desk. lavinia, as i learned she was called, led me to a dingy, grey little room and ordered me to sit on a padded foam chair with shiny black vinyl lining that was cut and peeling up with age. settling in, i set down my bag and extended my right arm, which she tied off with an elastic cord mid-bicep. "so...like your job?" i said, my eyes turned toward the ceiling as she produced a small syringe accented with little baby-blue plastic parts. "oh, you know...it's pretty boring," she replied as she jabbed the needle into the soft white part of my inner elbow. "oh," i said, turning to watch, disappointed, as she failed to draw any blood with the first assault. further jabbing eventually produced a willing vein, the results of which she smeared carelessly along a thin strip of glass. she extracted the needle from my already-bruising flesh, slapped an alcohol-drenched cotton ball down on it, and ordered me to return to the waiting room. i obeyed with a sheepish smile, returning to the lobby and pulling out my book again, beginning a new chapter. just as pontius pilate was reclining on his patio chair and the tempest was about to break over jerusalem, i heard my name once more.
"so, am i good to go?" i grinned, stepping up to the counter and pulling out my wallet to dish over the 260 shillings. "typhoid is negative. malaria is positive," she said summarily, scooting her new-looking mouse across the pad as she made some final adjustments on her computer. "what?" i said, baffled. "are you sure?" she looked up from the flat computer screen and threw me a glance as if to say, "are you suggesting i'm incapable of doing my job?" instead of waiting around for her to actually say these words, however, i smiled, taking the white envelope from her hand with my test results in it, and padded across the street in the light mist which was now falling to the nearest chemist's.
there was a short line. i waited patiently. when at last my turn arrived and i found myself face-to-face with the grim-looking woman behind the barred counter window, i smiled as if i'd just won a prize and declared, "i have malaria! so, can you give me some metakelfin?" this was the medicine that peter had just instructed me, via telephone, to buy. she stared at me blankly for a second and then, turning, plucked an aluminum packet from a large box and slipped it into a nondescript little brown paper bag. "90 shillings," she said flatly, sliding the little pack across the counter to me. i felt like i was taking part in some kind of illicit deal. i retrieved the 90 shillings from my wallet and tucked the pack into my bag. "so...i mean, how am i supposed to take this?" blank stare. "meaning, should i take one today and one tomorrow, or what?" she stared for another 5 seconds or so before finally responding, "you take them both at once." "with or without food?" "after food," she spat out, clearly exasperated with this unnecessary little game the mzungu was insisting on playing with her, wasting her precious pharmacist's time. "so when will i be cured?", i couldn't help resist making this last little inquiry. she turned away from me and let the squat, caramel-colored little man standing next to her answer instead. "one hour," he said simply, peering at me from over a lopsided pair of reading glasses. "what?" "one hour," he repeated in the same tone of voice. "like, all the malaria parasites will be dead within one hour of me taking this medication?" "yes," he said, turning to the next customer. okay, whatever. i turned on my heel and stepped back out into the (once again) sweltering afternoon heat.
i carefully followed these elaborate instructions last night, swallowing the two wide, flat tablets after managing an egg and a couple slices of bread. i woke up today feeling...pretty much the same. but not so bad. at any rate, i must admit i'm cheerful to have this whole malaria thing over with since it's occupied a not-insignificant chunk of my consciousness since my arrival in sub-saharan africa 6 months ago.
in other news, i'm insanely busy. basically, that's it. there's an immense pile of work, and i'm happy to be doing it. we have some amazing volunteers here, and the organization itself is expanding in terms that amaze me in spite of having been told that it would be doing so this year. the uniform project at the primary school is chugging along (should be posting some photos with this blog) in spite of some major setbacks which i will be happy to elaborate on for those of you who have interests in this initiative.
the next few weeks should be busy, busy, busy. in 5 days i'll have been here for 6 full months. halfway through, and my first brush with malaria. i must be doing okay.
