surviving through day 15

June 8... day 15.

wake up. breakfast. walk to town. class. lunch. class again. eat mandazi and chai before heading home. walk home. play slap jack with brothers. peel potatoes. eat orange that has really big seeds. peel carrots. take bath. do homeworrk... itchy arm... rash... that's weird, it doesn't look like a bite... put books away and take a benadryl for the rash.... when i closed the door to my room and walked down the hall my world began to spin. literally. I was going to pass out. literally, lose conciousness. I sat down as everybody was ready to eat and the feeling didn't go away... so I followed protocol and put my head between my knees. Everybody just stopped and stared at me. As I went back to my room I tried to explain that i didn't feel well (which is a difficult task when your family doesn't speak english). I curled up into a ball on my bed with the light on and the door open and started praying for it to stop. My mama and Philip were standing in teh doorway. I don't really remember what happened but they kept telling me to call Mary... (Mary is one of the PCMO's - Peace Corps Medical Officer) So i called our emergency medical number and explained what I was experiencing (it happened to be Sylvia who answered, the other PCMO) and my family kept saying, "call Mary call Mary, you need call Mary"... and I tried to reply, "i called medical. it was Sylvia."... somehow they understood enough that i wasn't going to do anything for a while and they left my room. some time goes by. I mean, FOREVER. I, literally, made my peace with God... begging him to let me go quickly if it was the end. And that's when i started vomitting. I hadn't eaten for 3 hours so it was mostly dry-heaving with a small amount of brown translucent liquid. In response to the violent noises coming from my room my mama returned to stand at the doorway and say "oooohh" as she watched me convulse.

I think I bonded more with my host family after this. Even though she didn't know how to phrase anything to help me. I managed to say, "maji, tafadhali." and she scattered to grab my water bottle. I felt much better after throwing up. So, i cleaned out my bucket, drank some water and then started throwing up again. GOD WILL THIS EVER STOP? I was so exhausted that I passed out and woke up the next mornign starving and sore.

I'm actually glad that my first vulnerable condition experience is over now - I don't have to anticipate it anymore. and let me telly you, being sick in the US is nothign like being sick here. My host parents kept asking, "you don't feel well?" as my head was in a bucket and kept telling me to, "call mary!"... and i am loooooooong way from a decent hospital. I definitely would not haev made it if it had been life threatening... and the best part about all of this is that i kept thinking... "it would be really bad if I died here."

I survived through day 15!! (small victories, right?!) and just in time to celebrate hat day!