A Visit to the Hospital

                Today was pretty normal, except for the part where I went to the hospital and got to skip all the lines.

                Yesterday I was itchy all over. It was weird and then last night when I change to go to bed I say what looked like dozens of mosquito bites in strange places such as my thighs and belly. I showed Whitney and she thought they were mosquito bites too except for one on my leg which I didn’t see before but she thought it was a spider bite. The after-bite wasn’t really working for me so I put some drawing salve on them at that seemed to help and I went to bed. I woke up a couple of times but I’ve been doing that lately too.

                This morning while we were slicing sweet potatoes my sides and hips were really itchy so I showed Emily and Whitney. Emily thought it might be bed bugs because there was so much so we sent Whitney to go try to figure out what it was on the internet. We still thought it was bug bites and we didn’t really find anything conclusive.

                After the potatoes were in the brines, we could take a break so we went into my room to see if we could find any bed bugs. Nope. Everything seemed normal in there so we asked Betha what it was udi bili (or something like that) and that I needed to go to the hospital. Well that escalated quickly. We asked her how you get it and she said it just happens. She came with us to talk to the accountant to find a ride to the health center down the road. Camille and Nicolle took the van for the week to go do interviews for their project so Emily and I were wondering what was going to happen. As it turns out, Camille and Nicolle had to come back to get a check from the accountant. When they came back we told them the story and they gave us a ride to the health center. Chimongo came with us and got us past the lines and in to see somebody to give me calamine. He asked me when it started and where I was from. He didn’t believe that I was from Malawi. Then he just gave me some calamine and we walked back out. The only stressful part of the situation I think was not knowing what it was.

                When Chimongo found out that I had udi bili she told the cleaning lady to wash my sheets because she thinks it was an allergic reaction. That kind of makes sense because it’s starting to look more like a rash than a bunch of bug bites. When we got back from the clinic, I went into my room to put the lotion on while everybody else took care of the potatoes. While I was in there I figured I might as well change my sheets now while the calamine dries so I did. Right before I finished remaking my bed the cleaning lady came in. I channeled my inner Whitney and gave her my dirty sheets. She didn’t leave so I guessed that she wanted to see my rash so I showed her. She didn’t think it looked like much fun but still wasn’t leaving. Then she started pointing at my bed so I gave her my comforter and the other blanket that was on it. She took them and the clean sheets I just put on and left. She even left the dirty sheets I already gave her in the hall. Oh well. Maybe she’ll clean them all who knows.

                So there you have it. I was so lucky that I was the first person on this trip to get sick and then I was the first person on this trip that needed to see a doctor. I’m just about ready to move here permanently. No worries though, it’s nothing bad. I’ll be fine. Just getting some good stories to bring back with me.