14 January 2011
It is raining all the time here. Seriously, all the time. I think the skies have poured at least once every day this past week. It is so strange seeing the world all green and wet – a complete reverse from my first month here.
Though the rains are such a blessing to Dodoma, they seem to paralyze me – confining me to the house. I could be more adventurous, but it is hard when the rains aren’t very regular – tiny showers and then major pours at all hours of the day. About a week ago, I decided to risk it and take a bike ride to town, despite the sky becoming quickly black (hey, it was bright blue on the other side!). I was sick of staying inside, so I thought at least I could use the internet while I was waiting out the storm. I was pretty much riding into the cloud, finding myself at the internet café completely soaked through. I’m sure I provided much entertainment for the locals, as they sought refuge under the roofs of dukas (stores) and watched as not just the only white person, but the ONLY PERSON on a bike tried to push along. I made it there alive, thankfully, but I was soon reminded how inconsistent the electricity is, especially when it storms. So I spent quite a while very wet in a dark internet café, waiting out the rain and hoping the electricity would come back. It worked eventually, and the rained slowed eventually, and I eventually headed back home on my bike on the muddy and rainy roads. Yeah, don’t worry – I don’t want to do that ever again either.
Besides that little escapade, I’ve been (much emphasis on the past tense) enjoying the coolness of the rain. It reminds me so much of home (Pittsburgh and Cleveland – I’m sorry Steelers and Browns fans, calm down!). I was enjoying it up until I started feeling really sick one afternoon – the kind of sick that makes your whole body ache. By the evening I had a fever, felt very weak, had pretty horrible back and head pains, and had a horrible stomach ache. After talking with my housemate Jana, she confirmed the symptoms were much like hers – WHEN SHE HAD MALARIA. Gosh, I felt like I was about to die, and having that verdict broke my heart. (Side note, one of my biggest fears here is getting malaria, not because of the experience of it, but more because the US will never allow me to donate blood again if I have it – it stays in your blood. That would just be so sad.) I took good care of myself throughout the night, making sure to wake every 4ish hours to eat a piece of bread, drink some water and take ibuprofen, which really helped my fever break but took a huge toll on my stomach. The next day, besides feeling weak and hot, I had a horrible stomach cramp from all the medicine. Though the day started not too badly, as the hours passed I began feeling worse and worse. Thankfully our good friend Martin took me to a local Duka la Dawa (Shop of Medicine), where he usually takes all the volunteers when they are feeling ill. The doctor there spoke English really well (which in some ways legitimizes his practice, showing his high level of education because English is emphasized in higher education). He didn’t ask for any healthcare information or money upfront, he simply took me to the back room, wrote down my name, “Laura,” and pricked my finger to draw some blood to test for malaria. He told us to come back in a half hour for the results and to pick up any medicine, if necessary. Martin returned for me a half hour later, bringing a small sample of ibuprofen and the verdict of “no malaria.” YES! I guess the change of weather was just too much for me to handle – I usually get pretty bad sinus issues in the States when it rains so this is no surprise. I woke up Day 3 feeling pretty well – still weak and not able to eat a full meal, but it felt good to walk around, wash a few dishes and clean my room (I know, Mom, don’t faint!). I’m going to try to stay low at least another day or two just so that I can fully recover, but things are looking good.
Getting sick here has really given me lots of time to think about how much worse I would feel if I were truly living like the people a few yards away from me. This may sound silly, but think back to the times you were sick – weren’t you so bored of just laying around all day? At least you could watch TV shows or some movies. We are lucky to have a TV in this house, but it has a total of three channels which are usually broadcasting shows in Kiswahili, and we don’t have a DVD player or any DVDs. And because of my headache and how weak I was, I really had no interest in reading books. So I literally laid around staring at the wall. But my neighbors don’t have that luxury of watching TV or movies, and quite frankly because of their lack of money (can’t afford them) and/or lack of education (can’t read them), books are not an option.
Other more important things: our water heater. When I first arrived here, in an effort to “live more simply” I chose to not use the water heater attached to our shower. But as the rains came, so did freezing cold nights where not using the water heater made showers extremely uncomfortable and sometimes painful. And now having a fever the past few days has surely made me use the water heater, and honestly, it has made me feel much better every time I showered. I can’t imagine how these days would have gone if I did NOT use the water heater, or didn’t shower at all. Try to imagine not showering after a full night of sweating from fever. To us (us Americans, us privileged, us wealthy, us wazungu…), a warm shower is such a “basic necessity,” and yet I could call from my window to a family that probably lives without it; (and if we were truly honest with ourselves, I bet many of you in the States could do the same).
And I have blankets, and clean sheets, a bed and net that gives me a good night sleep and keeps the bugs away, and a couch that gives me a change of scenery from my bedroom to the living room.
And I am longing for my baggy sweatpants that I left at home because they were too big to pack. I’ve been wearing the same nice pair of yoga pants for the past five days. And I am missing that heating pad for my upset stomach. And I wish we had a dryer – nothing is drying here because it is raining so often, so my towel and other things are always wet. And I am really, really missing my Mom’s rivoli soup – a lot.
So now I feel stuck between this idea of living simply and accepting my own reality. Living simply in the sense of coming to understand what the poverty of those around me feels like, with full knowledge that I can pull myself from this at any moment (the second I decide to spend some extra money to get those things that I am missing, or asking someone to send it). And my own reality in the sense that I have come from another culture, another economic standing and have experienced these comforts that are considered “basic needs” to everyone I normally share my life space with. It is almost to complicated for me to wrap my head around.
Well, those are my meanderings for now... Thoughts?
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