I started not feeling well on the 23rd, and I even had the passing thought, "I hope I don't have malaria," but I quickly dismissed it and went on with my day. Oh Emily, what were you thinking.
The next day we spent most of our morning at the Indian Embassy working on getting our visas ready so we can go to India in February. I was freezing all morning, but I convinced myself it was because we were sitting in air conditioning, which I hadn't seen in months. Then we walked at least a mile and a half in the sun to a grocery store big enough to give me culture shock, and then to KFC. I felt weak and tired, but I stayed in denial, and told myself it was just because it was hot, I didn't sleep the night before, and I need food. The KFC helped a little.
That night, after lying on the couch in the fetal position for a while, I went to bed early and missed most of the Christmas Eve merriment. I did wake up around 11 to some of my teammates singing the 12 Days of Christmas, and then again around 4 because I was freezing cold, which just doesn't happen in Africa, but I kept telling myself it wasn't malaria.
Christmas morning we opened the presents our Secret Santa's got for us, and then watched some of a Christmas movie before our contact brought a bunch of his family over to start cooking Christmas dinner. I managed to help peel a ton of garlic, and that much effort made me feel like I was going to pass out. I ended up curling up in the fetal position again in a big pile of everyone's bags in the spare room for several hours. After a while, I just couldn't do it anymore, so I asked my leader Ali if I could go to the hospital.
Our contact took me, Christina, and Robin to a malaria clinic about 30 minutes away. I couldn't even stand at the counter long enough to spell my name for them, so I became "Emely Eleson". Close enough. I went into a little room marked "Laboratorio", where they pricked my finger, and then we waited for about 20 minutes. Then my contact and I went into a room marked "Cosultorio", where after several minutes of the doctor asking why I don't speak the local language, he finally told me through my contact that I do have malaria. I have to take some medication, and get retested in a week to make sure it's gone. Awesome.
Christina got tested too. Hers came back negative, and so did the one she took the next day, but the day after that they finally got a positive and were able to treat her for her malaria. The hospitals here are special. I spent the next two days lying in our contact's 3 year old son's room, alternating between freezing cold and burning hot, forcing myself to eat every 8 hours so I could take my medicine. Malaria is not fun, folks. Not even a little bit.
I thought Christmas was going to be hard this year, away from my family. It doesn't even feel like Christmas happened. It never got cold. Our snowman was made of rocks in the sand. I had rice and medicine for dinner. But, besides the malaria, it was a really good Christmas. Our contacts this past month were wonderful, and they did a great job making us feel as much at home as they could, especially considering they all got malaria while we were there too. Mosquitos are stupid.
Anyways, hope you all had a Merry Christmas! I also wanted to let you know that I still need $2,064 in my support account to be fully funded, and the deadline is technically in 2 days. So that's fun. If you feel led to give any amount, please know that it is so appreciated, and even just a couple of dollars will help! Love you all! Happy New Years!
