Before reading this, I warn you, if you don't want to be totally freaked out, grossed out, convinced that you never want to go to Africa, or another reason that no one should go to Africa, discontinue reading right now.
This story very easily has over shadowed the time when a bug flew in my eye during training, or when I broke my hand by merely walking--which has resulted in a bridge being built in my honor--or the weeks of heat rash, and poison-ivy like allergic reactions to mango skin that caused swelling of my lips.
A few weeks ago, upon returning home from watching Harry Potter the Prisoner of Azkaban in French with my French tutor and a professor from my school, with their daughter, I finally took a look at what had been annoying my left thigh for the majority of the evening--a bug bite. It looked like the typical bug bites I get here, red, raised, annoying and irritating, like a pimple.
A few days later as I am getting ready to take a shower and go to bed, when I walk by my hand mirror that I left sitting on my bed, and notice that the same bug bite has raised skin around it. It has been itching a little too, but I have learned to resist scratching per having heat rash for weeks on end, which is only made worse when scratched. After showering I show my Maman to get her opinion on this development, she has come accustomed to my overreactions to things they are so used to, and tells me it is just an abscess. I have had abscesses before and I am not convinced. I put some anti-itch stuff I find in my medical kit and hope it will be less inflamed in the morning.
The next day it looks about the same, but is more red. At the same time I have acquired a cold, which is not related to the abscess, but makes my life equally miserable. During the day I start having a fever, which I attribute to my cold at first, and then begin to wonder if it has to do with this mini-Mt. Vesuvius growing on my thigh. I keep applying some stuff to it, which alleviates the heat that has begun radiating from it, but nothing for its size.
By Sunday I grow concerned that I may have a staph infection on my hands, and opt to call the doctor, at the risk she will request I come down to Cotonou to see her and have it looked at. She knows I am far away and I can tell she wants me to start making the trip, but I try and successfully convince her to let me stay put, as I will be down in Cotonou in another two days anyways. She asks if I have a place to get antibiotics in my village, and I go to the health center in the village, and have the doctor there talk to her on the phone about what is happening on my leg. They give me antibiotics.
I start the antibiotics and try warm compresses to relieve the pressure on the infection, and while I start to feel better wake up at two hour intervals during the night with a fever.
The next day I head down to Natitingou, the infection is spreading still. I make the eight hour trip to Cotonou the following day, sitting next to my friend Clay, who very easily was suffering far more than I was from what we guessed to be malaria. I safeguard my leg, which hurts when I walk (as it has done for three days) and when a person just barely bumps up against it.
I arrive and immediately go see the doctor and she suggests waiting to drain it until morning. I don't like the sound of this and ask that it be drained the same evening, because of how painful it has become. We take a look at it and she makes an opening she hopes will allow it to drain on its own during the night. She takes me off the antibiotics I was on, and puts me on a stronger dosage, and marks where the infection is on my leg, to tell if it spreads during the night.
The next day she starts to drain the infection, which has luckily started to decrease in size, if only a little. I have a high pain tolerance and I had a hard time enduring the doctor draining the infection. It made me think if the pain was comparable to giving birth that I would lose my will to want to have children. The doctor stopped and said I would have to return in the evening to have her drain it more.
Around 5:30 p.m. I head to the doctor's office and she begins the process again, of cleaning up the infection, examining its size, and then draining what she can. It is as she is draining that I notice something white, and ask if it is dried puss. She says no, and then gives me a scientific name, which I take to be the scientific word for puss, but then she continues explaining, and it becomes clear. A bug. In my skin. Eggs. What bug? A bug? Really? Died and caused infection. Suffocated. Tiny hole in leg.
As the doctor disposes of the larva, she explains again. A bug called, the tumbu fly, accidentally laid an egg in my skin, which died after I inadvertently suffocated with the cream I had put on it because I thought it was an abscess. When the larvae died it caused the volcano like infection on my leg.
After the dead larva was removed things started to improve immediately, and now all that remains is a small reddish, purple dot.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Top 10 Teaching Moments
After a year in the Beninese school system, the following is a list of my most memorable teaching moments.
1. The joy and relieve on their faces when I returned from being sick and when I told them I'd be their teacher again next year.
2. Everytime I had to pause for a mini-lecture on behavior, only to have my students look at me with such a charming innocence that all I could do was smile back at them.
3. My most challenging class having 62 of the 64 students pass English class.
4. Learning that the words "swimming pool" said quickly is the word for "f***ing" in local language.
5. Making my students sing and do the Hokey-Pokie for being late to class.
6. A first year English student unprompted pointing to a photo of Alicia Silverstone photo and saying, "She is my wife."
7. Students writing in English their future goals in English.
8. Teaching students "polite phrases" and having a student say: "Exx-squeeeze me."
9. Student accidently saying "It is a sh**" instead of "It is a shirt."
10. My students presenting and performing bands they created in class.
1. The joy and relieve on their faces when I returned from being sick and when I told them I'd be their teacher again next year.
2. Everytime I had to pause for a mini-lecture on behavior, only to have my students look at me with such a charming innocence that all I could do was smile back at them.
3. My most challenging class having 62 of the 64 students pass English class.
4. Learning that the words "swimming pool" said quickly is the word for "f***ing" in local language.
5. Making my students sing and do the Hokey-Pokie for being late to class.
6. A first year English student unprompted pointing to a photo of Alicia Silverstone photo and saying, "She is my wife."
7. Students writing in English their future goals in English.
8. Teaching students "polite phrases" and having a student say: "Exx-squeeeze me."
9. Student accidently saying "It is a sh**" instead of "It is a shirt."
10. My students presenting and performing bands they created in class.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Top 10 Weirdest Things I Have Seen Transported on Motorcycles
- Cow head and body parts
- Queen size mattress
- Two huge metal doors
- Three or more goats
- Two or more pigs
- An entire family of five
- Two to three crates filled with glass bottles of soda and beers
- Dozens of chickens and guinea hens tied to each other, tied to the handles
- Wooden chairs
- Something the size of hay bails holding fabric
Friday, July 9, 2010
Lazy Days
It has been about two weeks since I finished with school. I have been involved in a smattering of end of the year things, meetings and practicing for a spelling bee two of my students are doing this weekend, but overall I have been mastering the art of vacationing.
In the States I was infamous for my inability to truly relax and vacation. I would take vacations only to try and plan every moment and or sneak in work at the same time. For my mom’s 50th birthday we all went to the beach for a weak. It was during the third day I finally checked email for work, which of course meant I put in an hour or so of work answering emails and writing up some things for people in the office. Last year during my best friends wedding we had a whole beach house for our bridal party and I managed to sneak in a lesson planning while driving to another part of the beach for the day. If I wasn’t working, I would planning what I wanted to do next or worrying about the hundreds of things I would have to do when I got finished with vacation, as if I actually were ever really on vacation.
Now, in Africa I feel I am learning the art of relaxing and of vacationing. Of course vacationing is used loosely here as living without air conditioning and other basic amenities might not be the normal persons idea of vacationing; in fact I dream of never taking a vacation again in which there are not lush giant white pillows and soft bedspreads so glorious one might think angels had made them. Yet relaxing is something that can be done because well really what else can you do without internet, television, a car, a million places and errands to run. Even if I have an errand, say buying phone credit, I can send one of the little kids in my concession to go do it for me.
I give myself, at the most one task a day to do, and normally if I don’t feel like doing it I don’t unless it is mandatory, say like tomorrows professors meeting. Otherwise I wake-up around 7 a.m. take a run down to the lake down the road, stop and talk to my Togolese friend and her son, who she wants me to take to the States with me. He is one year old. I come back shower, have breakfast waiting for me next door, or make some oatmeal myself. I have developed a fascination for taking the colored sprinkles used for decorating and putting them in the oatmeal turning it a red-ish pink. I might pick up a book to read. I have started tackling the Bible. Then I take a nap on a mat under a tree, or if it isn’t yet 11 a.m. in my house. Yesterday I poked around with Canterbury Tales, which by the way is far better and understandable than I remember it being in college. Admittedly though I feel like I skimmed it far more and college and I think that piece of literature fell into my hands during the period when I had mono and was half-asleep through most assignments.
Last week I started learning how to make Beninese food, which earned me great praise for simply stirring a giant wooden spoon. Go me! I also had a very close biological connection with a just killed chicken which I held while my sister cut it up for cooking; everything but the intestines. I can’t say I am as ashamed as I should be for picking up its head and making jokes with my sister about the chicken sleeping. For such a laborious day it is only natural that I go to bed around 9:30 or 10 p.m. I swear the more I do nothing the more tired I feel. Makes me wonder if we can ever really relax and vacation; I suppose all I can do is to keep trying.
In the States I was infamous for my inability to truly relax and vacation. I would take vacations only to try and plan every moment and or sneak in work at the same time. For my mom’s 50th birthday we all went to the beach for a weak. It was during the third day I finally checked email for work, which of course meant I put in an hour or so of work answering emails and writing up some things for people in the office. Last year during my best friends wedding we had a whole beach house for our bridal party and I managed to sneak in a lesson planning while driving to another part of the beach for the day. If I wasn’t working, I would planning what I wanted to do next or worrying about the hundreds of things I would have to do when I got finished with vacation, as if I actually were ever really on vacation.
Now, in Africa I feel I am learning the art of relaxing and of vacationing. Of course vacationing is used loosely here as living without air conditioning and other basic amenities might not be the normal persons idea of vacationing; in fact I dream of never taking a vacation again in which there are not lush giant white pillows and soft bedspreads so glorious one might think angels had made them. Yet relaxing is something that can be done because well really what else can you do without internet, television, a car, a million places and errands to run. Even if I have an errand, say buying phone credit, I can send one of the little kids in my concession to go do it for me.
I give myself, at the most one task a day to do, and normally if I don’t feel like doing it I don’t unless it is mandatory, say like tomorrows professors meeting. Otherwise I wake-up around 7 a.m. take a run down to the lake down the road, stop and talk to my Togolese friend and her son, who she wants me to take to the States with me. He is one year old. I come back shower, have breakfast waiting for me next door, or make some oatmeal myself. I have developed a fascination for taking the colored sprinkles used for decorating and putting them in the oatmeal turning it a red-ish pink. I might pick up a book to read. I have started tackling the Bible. Then I take a nap on a mat under a tree, or if it isn’t yet 11 a.m. in my house. Yesterday I poked around with Canterbury Tales, which by the way is far better and understandable than I remember it being in college. Admittedly though I feel like I skimmed it far more and college and I think that piece of literature fell into my hands during the period when I had mono and was half-asleep through most assignments.
Last week I started learning how to make Beninese food, which earned me great praise for simply stirring a giant wooden spoon. Go me! I also had a very close biological connection with a just killed chicken which I held while my sister cut it up for cooking; everything but the intestines. I can’t say I am as ashamed as I should be for picking up its head and making jokes with my sister about the chicken sleeping. For such a laborious day it is only natural that I go to bed around 9:30 or 10 p.m. I swear the more I do nothing the more tired I feel. Makes me wonder if we can ever really relax and vacation; I suppose all I can do is to keep trying.
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