February 4, 2011

This is the first minute I’ve been well enough to write anything. We have to take a malaria pill once a week for the entire time we are here. It is potent and it is time release so just once a week. Most people when they visit countries that you need malaria pills you start taking them 2 - 4 weeks before travel. I kept wondering why we didn’t get a prescription or anything. I assumed we would take the first one in DC. Alas, this did not happen. On the 3rd we took our first one. Because now we are already here and would could have been bit getting off the plane and already have Malaria we need to up the dosage to build up the levels of Mefloquine (sp?? I have the paper with the correct spelling but I’m not well enough to get up right now) in our systems. So now we are to take a pill once a day for 3 days. I don’t know why this doesn’t sound OK to me. So the side effects are shaking, anxiety, nausea, loss of appetite, vomiting, headaches, irritability, lightheadedness, dizziness…to name a few and all of the ones I have had since day one…minus the vomiting. Those who know me know how much I hate to vomit, or even say the word, or hear the sounds of vomiting. So that wasn’t an option. This being the 4th day I have had all these symptoms. Today, even though we didn’t have to take a pill today and don’t have to take one again until next Sunday was my worst day yet. The day of the culture festival.

I woke up sick to my stomach and tried to eat something. My stomach was upset, my mouth was dry, I was shaking and anxious. Could put the food, the nice dry bread with peanut butter and jelly, in my mouth but could not swallow. I went into the repertoire and apparently looked pretty scary as everyone was asking if I was alright. I did not answer…I cried, and cried and cried. So a volunteer trainer took me so dizzy barely able to walk to the infirmary. I laid down for a while and they gave me a packet of Gatorade to mix in my water. I felt a little better so I went to the training that was all about us leaving for homestay (the village and family we will live with for the next 9 weeks). I stood as long as I could and then had to lay down, back up when I was better…and then back down. It was like the worst hangover in the world. And this has been three days. I’m a little pissed at PC and this could be my irritability talking, but WHY for the love of god did we not start these pills at home? What makes them think it is OK to give these pills to us every day for three days when it is a once a week pill? As it turns out, although I seem to have been the worst affected, I am not the only one. Some didn’t get their side effects until today. They said they felt dizzy and shaky but nothing they couldn’t deal with. Then bam…today they hit a brick wall. But nothing like what I had . At one point I was sitting in the dining area shaking and nauseous crying like a baby. I was trying to unplug my phone and couldn’t do it. It was horrible. Although I still may have some slight side effects over the next couple of week until my body builds up a tolerance this should never happen again…especially since I’m not dumb enough to take the three pills like that in a row again…EVER.

So I missed all the good material at the culture fair to have a pan~a made. So I bought something OK and had one made anyone and then bought a beautiful purple material kind of shiny for my dress for the swearing in. Supposedly it’s quite the party and everyone gets dressed up. There were young men on sewing machines making outfits while you waited. But there is a tailor in every village and they will do a more detailed job with embroidery around the neck and bottom and sleeves. I can get a full length dress or a top and a matching pan~a. Have it made to fit for like $5. So I’m going to wait. It’s gonna be great. There was dancing and singing. I even felt good enough to dance some. The drumming is amazing and they are just so happy and really know how to party. No alcohol involved.

Apparently the fact that I felt better was a tease. Within an hour I was shaking and nauseous and dizzy again. I hadn’t eaten all day due to lack of appetite, but I really felt like I needed to. And of course they had some American type food. Beef kabobs, French fries, some of the usually stewy stuff and some break type substance…of course. I believe they said it was fru fru. So sans the french fries I ate one kabob, a bready thing and a little stewy stuff. LOL!! That sounds so ridiculous but definitely describes what we eat. I came back to my hut and took a warm bucket bath, washed my hair, brushed my teeth, put on my pjs, took and Excederin PM and had nice thoughts of a good night sleep. After laying on my bed for about 40 minutes I figured it I could sit up without being nauseous I would write my blog into a word document so when I get internet in the morning and if I’m feeling better hopefully I can find time to post. Since tomorrow is our last full day here before leaving for homestay site for 10 days, it’s now or never…or at least 10 days.

Tomorrow we are going to find out where our homestay site is. All of the villages will be dispersed to are within an hour of where we are now. There will be 5-6 volunteers at each site. So even though we won’t be together anymore, we won’t be alone either. I assume they will split us up by language first. About 80 percent of us that are here will be learning Bambara. But there are other minority languages spoken here. Malinki, pul, fufu (or something like that) and a couple of others. Those of us that tested advanced French will be taught to speak one of the minority languages. Since most of the men speak their local language as well as French the chosen volunteers will still be able to communicate well within their village either way. I don’t know how they decide how to split the rest of us up. It will be interesting to find out who’s going where.

We will be taken to these sites on Tuesday morning. We will go with only 1 of our 2 suitcases, our medical kit, our water filter system, a trunk they have made up for us with other necessities in it, a mosquito net and our bikes. YAY!! We get our bikes. They will drive us over there and we will have a walk around. We will be taken to each homestay home so we will know where each other lives. We will meet our homestay families and then we will talk about our schedules. There will always be our LCF (language culture facilitator) in village with us for the whole 9 weeks. From what I understand we will have 6 hours of language lessons a day. 2 students per 1 teacher. From 8am to 12. Then again 2:30 to 4:30. We will learn about culture as we learn language and then in between with our host family. I’m really nervous and anxious about this part. I wasn’t the other day but anxiety is another side effect of the mefloquine. Great. Hopefully I will be better by then and at the top of my game. I was excited about this par the other day. I have been feeling so bad that if someone said today you have to go to your homestay site today or go home…I would have chosen home. That’s pretty bad. Anyway, we will be moved to these homes with large families. The men might speak French but no one speaks English. The doors to each room face out to a courtyard. There is no one big house and the bedrooms are down the hall. So I will have my own space/room with a private entrance. We will eat together and greet each other each day and relax together and drink tea…which is a whole other ceremony and tradition. Pulling tea.

From what I understand even though the women never get to hang out or eat with the men I will probably be invited to eat and have tea with them. I find that interesting. They don’t really talk. Just mostly sit. The women don’t mind from what I understand. I will learn the hierarchy of the home. There could be more than one wife, older children, etc. I will be given a Maliala name. It all sounds so exciting and so nerve wracking at the same time. I guess after the initial shock and the initial few days or week it shouldn’t be too bad. These families have been trained and what to do with us, what we eat, that we need alone time (although they can’t conceive of this concept), etc. One of the women will get up and leave me a bucket of warm water outside my door so I can take it to bathe. They will probably insist on washing my clothes (which I finally learned how to do in two buckets yesterday). They will not let me help cook or clean, although I can be pretty persistent myself. It will be interesting to see in a few weeks what the differences are between how some of the younger volunteers are doing and what they are doing at their homes opposed to how it works out for me. Age plays a huge role here. In the US we do not necessarily take care of the older and don’t show any different respect for them just because they are older. Here age is respect. Age is wisdom. Age is everything. And being in a country where the mortality age for women is 47 and 48 for men I’m just about as old as they come.

I have to back up and correct myself for a minute. Age is not the deciding factor. From what I understand some of them do not even know how old they are. They do not celebrate birthdays or recognize them in any way. So I guess it’s “elders” that receive the respect. So elder I am.