Emails from Singida 6
Hi all,
It’s been a big week. In brief – I’ve had Malaria. I was only actually sick for one day – which involved 6 visits to 3 different ‘hospitals’ – it was apparently a fairly mild strain because I was still able to climb Hanang the next day. I’ve been completely fine since.
Once we got back to the village (late due to a bus beakdown and then a Land Rover breakdown) the rest of the week was really just saying goodbye. Yesterday I took a last English class in school as the English teacher there himself has Malaria – after some revision on tenses we went outside and did the Hokey Kokey with 90 kids!
The dispensary is looking good – most of the building work is done now – just the veranda floors to concrete, a second concrete seat to make, fittings to put in and painting to do. It should be on target to finish in 3 weeks time (the end of the project for this year).
Finally in the afternoon/evening we had traditional dancing from the villagers, some songs sang by us and then a party in the camp – with lots of uninvited extras it was crazy but great fun and the speeches were very touching. I was sad to leave Mvae - but am also very much looking forward to travelling. Regarding which – I’m planning to extend my trip to do another 3 weeks travelling – mainly to climb Kilimanjaro, go to Zambia and then South Africa (I’ll be joining others from the climb for those). There’s so much to see!
This will probably be my last group update – though I will be checking email. Miss you all and I’ll see you early December.
The anti-malarials don’t actually keep you from getting malaria – they just make it much, much, much less bad if you do. (It’s mosquito discipline, and good ole luck, that keep you from getting malaria.)
Ask Charles for his malaria story sometime . . . pretty harrowing.
Glad you lived!
m
Michael
3 Sep 08 at 10:50 am
Ah yes – I was told by the Doctor who treated me that none are effective against all strains but that the one’s I was on were effective against the worst strains. Anyway we actually stopped using repellant in camp because we didn’t see a single mosquito and didn’t get any bites. (there was no water anywhere near so perhaps that’s why). Anyway there must have been some kind of stealth ninja mosquito because I got it and never even noticed I had a bite!
Tim Corrigan
3 Sep 08 at 11:17 am