A wonderful part of volunteering in Africa

Warning: This post contains subject matter which may be gross to some readers... but it's all part of the African Peace Corps Experience.


March 18th, 2008 from my journal:
"Illnesses come in two flavors for us. One is the flu/malaria chills, fever, achy body, nausea. The other, and the far more common, is the amoeba, bacteria, or other parasitic friends who set up shop in your stomach. It's of the latter that I have been suffering today. Starts as a rumbling and tightness in your gut. Maybe gassy, but then again maybe not. You start by thinking "Please let it be something just taking its time digesting, once it's out everything will be fine." And sooner than later, it will be out and you'll know whether the party's over or just about to begin. Today my stomach was host to an animal house party and Jim Belushi's tearing down some walls.

Spent most of the day in various states of unconsciousness. Called in sick to the inspection, more to have someone come check on me if I'm missing for three days, then in concern about actual work, and slept till 10. Then, with the sun shine making further outdoor sleep impossible, I moved inside, collapsed onto my mattress and tried to sleep more. Lacking actual sleep, I watched Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer (bad movie; made me feel worse) and Die Hard 4 (good movie) on my laptop through various states of consciousness and in between trips to the latrine.

I even gave up wearing shorts (Don't trust a fart in this position) and spent the latter half of the day wrapping a towel around my waist for my latrine trips, much safer and leaves you with a nice breezy feeling.

Guess I might as well tell everything since I've started down this path: Water is better than toilet paper hands down. If I had been wiping instead of rinsing I would be one sore pup right now. As it is, at least raw bottom isn't one of my problems.

Not getting food and water to stay in me is a problem. Today I have eaten a small bag of trail mix (over the course of three hours with breaks) and... well that was it. Water is better, but it has an average staying time of only a couple minutes. Gatorade is a good friend in these cases.

Anything in your stomach is swarmed over like animal house partiers attacking a fresh case of beer before throwing the bottles into the back yard."

Epilogue: A day and a half of truly bad times and then I took some meds and started feeling better. Sickness likes this is a true fact of life here and all of us have experienced it to one extent or another AND we've all survived. It's even been said you're not a true volunteer until you crap your pants.

Who wants to come visit Niger?