Tag Archives: Malaria
Malaria
The morning after our visit to Etoko and the associated Porcupine Incident (our meal, which was followed by Brendon’s violent food poisoning and sick stomachs for others), I began to feel a bit ill. I took a few pills to settle my stomach and climbed into the UAC bus for the long trip back down south to Buea. 8 hrs later we arrived back home in Buea and I went straight to bed with a bit of a fever, and I soonafter decided that I had malaria so we called the doctor, who came and gave me fever pills and a shot for my stomach so that I could eat.
The next day he came back with the results from the malaria blood test showing a positive result for Plasmodium falciparum. He hooked me up to an IV and put tonnes of different meds in it, such as quinine and more antibiotics. I spent a few hours bored in bed, but feeling quite well, and after that I was fine.
These are all the meds I got for any possible parasites, amoebas, gastrointestinal stuff, etc.
I took it easy for a few days, and so I got out my camera and took a few random shots of stuff around the house, such as:
My fan:
A camera lens:
Insect repellant:
Our house’s blackboard, complete with remnants of our Pidgin Language classes:
The view out our front window, of volunteer clothing hanging to dry:
The Halfway Mark
The internet in Buea, Cameroon is really something unique. I’m able to check email a couple times a week usually, but many websites are too intense for the snailspeed internet here to access. Blogger.com is one of these, so I have not been able to log into my blog interface to update this site.
Photos are, for now, out of the question. I have been selecting pics that I will put up here when I have a decent connection, so rest assured that many photos (over 160 already chosen, only halfway through my trip) will appear here eventually. These pics may, however, only appear in September when I arrive back in Europe.
As for my adventures, in the last month I’ve continued teaching French classes (which will end this week), I spent a few weeks going to our new school construction site and helping with the building of a new vocational unit for wood workshop and metalwork and that sort of thing, I went with 9 other volunteers to Mamfé, a town north and west from here, near the border with Nigeria (it’s the major petrol smuggling point from Nigeria, you can’t even buy Cameroonian petrol there), and I got malaria.
The malaria wasn’t too bad, as I realized what it was almost immediately and got myself the medical attention I needed. I had the fun Plasmodium falciparum variety which is apparently very uncommon for foreigners here, though the doctor’s explanation for this was not very clear at all.
I’m still enjoying my stay after 42 days and I have another 42 days left, as I fly back to Europe on August 27th.
Feel free to email me at chris [at] photodiarist.com if you want to hear more details or whatnot, and don’t be surprised if the reply comes from chris.photodiarist [at] yahoo.ca, as I have my emails forwarded since I cannot check through my own server’s webmail facilities using this net connection.
