The Week From Hell - Part Two

Sweating it out in a poncho (taken post malaria, hence the smile!)

I did my best to ignore the early warning signs, not wanting to be seen to be moaning about nothing. The first thing I noticed was a complete lack of energy, and I'm not just talking about feeling tired but utterly exhausted from doing nothing more than waking up and having a shower. When I couldn't muster the energy to walk into town, opting to take a boat ride instead, I should have realised something was wrong.

Not wanting to admit something was wrong I proceeded to finish my daily chores in town before staggering back to the backpackers - a walk that usually takes ten minutes took me thirty and left me feeling worse than when I completed the Cape Argus cycle tour. To top it all of it was a sweltering day and yet there I was shivering in cold sweats in a woolen poncho. Finally I admitted to myself it might be malaria, although as much as I wanted to walk the ten metres to where my malaria testing kits were I simply couldn't get up.

It was only when Nelson, a friend who bares more than a passing resemblance to an eccentric wizard, walked past me and said 'man you look like sh#t' that I knew I had to do something. When he asked if I was feeling weak in my joints and muscles, feverish and suffering from headaches, of which I confessed to all, he had no hesitation in diagnosing me with malaria. It was then that I was shipped off to hospital for blood tests, which confirmed I had +1 malaria (which, thanks to getting tested early, is at the bottom end of the scale, but still pretty bad).

Armed with my medication, and a few bonus valium, I began the slow and painful trek back to the backpackers. Despite my obvious illness every local taxi driver wanted more money than it would cost to fly to Lilongwe to drive me three kilometres, which I refused to pay on principle. That walk back was one of the most challenging of my life, and upon completing it I was spent. You could have quite literally knocked me out with a feather, such was my state of complete exhaustion.

The next two days were spent in a quite horrible state, the fevers continued unabated, my body felt as if the life had been sucked out of it and my head was swimming in a sea of pain. Finally, on day three, with the help of Coartim, the symptoms began to subside, and slowly but surely I felt my energy levels increase, the fevers became less frequent and my head had stopped pounding. It took another three days to finally get back to somewhere near my old self, and with one last bout of energy loss my bad luck was completed.

On passing out on the sofa at the backpackers I didn't think twice about moving my bag next to where I was, such was the sudden drop in energy levels, a costly mistake to say the least. For it was whilst I was dead to the world that I had all the money stolen from my wallet - I guess it's true what they say, 'bad things come in threes'. The amount stolen, roughly fifty pounds, was beside the point, it was the feeling I had knowing someone had stolen my money. Suddenly I was looking at everyone as if they were potential criminals, my faith in the human race total diminshed for a few days.

Now you see it...

Now you don't!

My late gran always used to tell me 'whatever doesn't kill you will only make you stronger', although at the time of all this bad luck I was struggling to take that on baord. Looking back, knowing I survived a torid week, I can now say I am a stronger person for all of what went on, not to mention a wiser one - it will be a long time before I use the word 'corruption' in Africa again, or ignore the warning signs of malaria.

Money issues in Malawi