For weeks I have been sweating bullets, thinking that my spanishness had failed me. I left Montreal fleeing the cold, hoping to find the extreme heat of Mali comforting. I was only disapointed by my difficulties of adaptation.
But now I know that it was fever not heat making my life unbareable.
When finally, I forgot to take my daily dose of antimalaria pills, the illness hit me with all of its force. I suspect though that I had been carying it around for at least 2 weeks. Being constantly tired but unable to sleep; sleeping and waking up feeling as though I have been up for 4 days; having my face scare my little friends; and believing that, unknowingly, I was hit by truck were the syptomes that prompted me to consult the doctor.
Half my monthly wage was spent in blood analysis, taxi rides to the other side of the Niger River, and 2 brief encounters with a young, quebec educated, malian doctor.
It was all unconclusive which means they treat you for the most dominante illness in Mali and they hope you dont die of something they didnt see.
They give you vitamines and pills that are to cure you they say. For 3 days, twice a day, I forced myself out of bed to take the medication and eat. Nothing has ever been as painful.
The annoying thing about malaria is that it comes in waves. For 5 hours you wish for death to deliver you of the pain and fever that you have to endure in 40+ degree weather. Then, you suddenly feel okay. Not 100% but better. You get up, get dressed hoping to breath some fresh air, leave the house and salute all your neighbors, make it to the corner and out of nowhere, you are hit by another wave of fever and pain and with great difficulty make it back to bed.
You also know that with every wave, the sickness is bursting your red blood cells. From Tuesday to Sunday I lived under my mosquitonet cursing the one mosquito that got me.
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