Une semaine difficile.

One thing that I seriously underestimated before coming to Senegal was how seriously my health would be affected. When I did not experience jet lag in teh first few days of being here, I thought that I was in the clear and could adapt to anything. I was wrong. The dramatic change in climate, the high level of pollution here, new foods, exposure to questionably safe water, insects carrying tropical diseases, and a somewhat different sleep schedule all have affected me so far. The Senegalese take cleanliness inside their homes very seriously. Any dirt on the floor is immediately swept up, we never eat without tablecloths, and everyone bathes twice a day (generally). Outside of the houses, it is the opposite. Garbage is thrown anywhere, many cars have black exhaust fumes billowing out of them, stray cats and dogs run around, and, thanks to it being the rainy season, everything is muddy. Dakar is still a beautiful city though, with the beaches and flowers and bright fabrics. All the food that Soso has cooked me has been delicious, but I'm really starting to miss American food. The lack of fruit and plethora of white bread and white rice tends to completely halt one's digestive system. Thankfully there are fruit stands everywhere, and fruit is relatively inexpensive.

At the start of my third week here, I noticed that I was starting to feel a little off. I had an immense fatigue that would not go away, even though I was getting at least nine hours of sleep a night. I also was constantly hungry and exceptionally irritable. On Wednesday morning I woke up with a migraine and a fever, which I stupidly decided to fight, so I walked to campus only to feel worse when I arrived. Realizing that I had all the initial symptoms of malaria (headache, fever, chills, fatigue), I started to panic. I went to my Wolof class, which was an equally stupid decision, because I am one of five students and the class is entirely formed off student participation. I became dizzier, colder, and my stomach started to cramp up so much that I was soon hunched over my desk. As soon as we took our mid-class break, I asked the professor if I could leave. I went to the CIEE office on campus where Serigne, the director, called a doctor for me. Thankfully the doctor came to meet me there, where she gave me a prescription and told me to get a malaria test the next morning. Unfortunately the doctor did not speak any English and had insanely messy handwriting, so I had to rely on my shaky French to understand the dosages for each of the five medications. The people at the pharmacy were absolutely no help, either. I have never experienced a more frustrating language barrier... I felt horrible, and all I wanted to do was cry and hide because I could not think clearly and could not understand what anyone was telling me. As soon as I got home, I was already throwing up profusely with a case of diarrhea I did not even know was humanly possible. Thus, for the next 48 hours, I ran back and forth between my bedroom and the bathroom (there is only one bathroom in the house) constantly. My entire abdomen had insane cramps that left me in severe pain. I had not felt that miserable since I got hit by a truck two summers ago. I was contemplating popping a percoset or two and calling in a time-out for a few hours, but then I was afraid that I would be mixing too many medications. Thankfully, the antibiotics kicked in and my abdominal cramps started to lessen. Unfortunately I then realized how dehydrated I was, which left me in bed for another two days because I was too dizzy and weak to walk around or go anywhere. All the while, Soso nonchalantly kept telling me, "Eat, drink, sleep, and take your medicine." This really frustrated me at first, but then she proceeded to tell me that all students get sick at some point (she had already seen this episode played out eight times).

Anyway, I just finished One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marcia Marquez and it is now one my favorite books. Now I'm going to read the next installment of Harry Potter in French: Le Prisonnier d'Azkaban. I also decided to drop one of my classes, Reglement des Crises, and instead take an African literature class. I love this class so much, it feels like a book club.

Also, I finally got back the results of the malaria test. I'm pretty sure it is negative, I can't really understand what it says, it is all graphs and percentages and that. It does say "Negative" in one place, and I feel fine now, so I will assume that I just had some weird gastro-intestinal bug, because I'm not sick anymore.