Sick

I wake up in the middle of the night with a bump on my neck I’ve had checked out before now red and swollen. I immediately diagnose cancer due to radiation exposure at In Ecker or from the hours spent on the satellite phone, and go back to sleep. The next day I decide to see if it goes away by itself, but do call Polly to ask Dr. L for some strategies in dealing with this little problem. I notice a sore throat and some sniffles, but it all seems quite mild.

Encampement Dromedaire

It is time to start taking my malaria pills in anticipation of Niger and I pop one of them after breakfast. The Orange prescription bottle from CVS says take one per week with food and plenty of water. Later that day I have lunch with friends and by the time I get back to Dromadaire I know something is terribly wrong: I feel a little dizzy, a little flush, a little achy. The sore throat and sniffles add a little je-ne-sais-quoi. I eat very little at dinner, and get into bed. Chills and a fever arrive to keep me company. My stomach is already dancing when Violent Diarrhea prances in, ready to party. I’m not in the mood, but Diarrhea insists and we stay up all night together, shaking and carousing to Bob Marley on the MP3 player:

“I’m hurting, I’m hurting deep inside,
good God now hear my cry, hear my cry,
my my my my cry,
feel the pain, feel the pain,
happiness come back a while…”

Encampement Dromedaire

The African toilet consists of a porcelain tray set into the floor with two raised footsteps and a single hole. Dromadaire is kept meticulously clean but that open hole always smells a bit. A squatting position is required, which I personally find very uncomfortable but which seems to come naturally to everyone else. A tap and a bucket serve as toilet paper and flush mechanism, and a sink outside allows you to wash your hands afterwards.

Toilet

As a paperless system I suppose it has certain ecological assets, but I find the whole thing a pain in the a--. I walk back and forth between the toilets and my room all night and by morning I am empty and exhausted.

Dromedaire arcade

“We don’t need no more trouble,
We don’t need no more trouble,
Lord knows we don’t need no trouble…
No more trouble,
No more trouble,
What we need is…”

Sick room

I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling. The late morning sun insinuates itself through the joints between the wood slats of the shutter of my single window, casting shadows on the wall in front of me. I notice after a while that I have dozed and the shadows now reach the floor. Outside, the women who clean Dromadaire chatter while they work. Twenty French tourists came through for the night and they are no doubt busy. A cat howls, no doubt the one that begs me for scraps every night. The goats grazing the garbage at the gate howl and bray. A distant hammer pounds a rhythm, the echoes making the world outside seem very big and this room very small. I feel weak and I’m worried about this bump on my neck, but no word yet from Dr. L.

Dromedaire window

Salah brings me some palm milk his mother made to settle my stomach, and I get up to attend to the laundry. I feel awful, but the ceiling was getting pretty boring.

Tamanrasset, Algeria