While having severe diarrhea, you are tuned into every gurgle of your stomach…because every rumble, every pain, every pop could mean an emergency. When you have diarrhea in Africa, it’s not something to blush over, so get over that quick. Soon everyone will know you are running diarrhea and ask every time you emerge from the toilet (or just walking by) how it is doing. When you have diarrhea, making a loud or smelly fart is not embarrassing, its longed for! Because when you have diarrhea in Africa, there is no such thing as a fart. Let this act as a warning to those who have not yet experienced the wonders of diarrhea, and a laugh to those lucky enough to have a proper toilet nearby. When you are lying in bed, its still early and you want to sleep some more…but there is that pang in your lower gut, saying you gotta go to the bathroom…in the back of your mind, you are aware of the danger of waiting…is this a fart I can control with ease, or something worse? That’s when you either accept the inevitable and make a run for it, and try to deal with the repercussions of your momentary laziness, or thank god for the glorious, glorious thing that is a fart. Have you appreciated a fart today?
As can be gathered, I have, along with several other volunteers, been fortunate enough to have already contracted malaria (thankfully having only the mild symptom of diarrhea)! Going to the hospital to try and see if I was afflicted with worms or some horrible parasite as the cause of my runny stomach, I left surprised to learn that I had malaria. Who knew? I guess I should have expected it, after all, I get just about every sickness imaginable, so why not malaria from a mosquito as soon as I stepped onto the tarmac in Accra? Thankfully I am feeling better now, but resigned to the fact that I will most definitely get it again before I leave!
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