Friday, November 25, 2011
As I have said in other blog posts, Blake and I find ourselves sometimes laughing, over the things that are acceptable in African culture that we would never dream of doing in American culture.
One of those things happened in relation to traditional medicines. When Blake and I first moved to Africa, we found ourselves trying to be very careful with what we eat, and very concerned about the water we take in. While Rwanda’s water does pass the world health’s requirements for clean water, we still made sure we were filtering our water for drinking or buying bottled water, we also made sure that we were brushing our teeth in filtered water. Now in Congo, I boil all of our water and then filter it, just to be safe. (Awe, to go back to the life of brushing your teeth out of the sink, or taking your water fresh from the tap!)
Now, while we were purposefully very careful. It doesn’t stop the fact that you sometimes just “forget”, but unfortunately that one time can be the problem that causes it all. Now, I don’t know if I really did drink tap water, or if I swallowed water while showering, or if it was eating food prepared by other people, but April 2010, while we were visiting Bukavu, DRC for the very first time, I had my first TERRIBLE experience with a stomach bug. Which we later found to be an amoeba.
An amoeba (pronounce uh-MEE-buh) is any of several tiny, one-celled protozoa in the phylum (or primary division of the animal kingdom) Sarcodina. Amoebas live in freshwater and salt water, in soil, and as parasites in moist body parts of animals. Yep, that is what I got in my system (sounds gross doesn’t it?)!
I woke up early in the morning about 3am and started throwing up about every 30 minutes or so. It got to the point of being so bad, that while I was trying to go to the bathroom, I passed out and fell off the toilet (seriously, this story wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t put that in there!) I stayed in the hotel room – of no running water, where you have to flush toilets by dumping water into the toilet bowl, while Blake finished his work at the District center. Even though I was SO sick, we had to cross the boarder back to Rwanda that same day, because we didn’t know if I would need to go to the hospital. I had to appear to be healthy, while the guy was stamping my passport. Now I already told you I was sick, but for the full affect, I could feel the blood draining from my face, I knew I was getting really pale, and knew that if I didn’t sit back down I would pass out again. He finally stamped my passport, and I made it to a bench to sit on just as my vision was going blurry. But I thankfully did make it there and waited on the bench for probably 30 minutes, while Blake went to collect our truck we left in Rwanda so he could drive me to the other hotel.
He left me to sleep, while he went to the pharmacy. They pharmacist told him it sounded like an amoeba and gave Blake a box of 4 pills. He told me to take all of them at once, and in the morning I would be better. By the time I woke up the next morning I was completely better. There was no sign I was ever sick in the first place. We left from Cyangugu, Rwanda that morning for our 6-hour drive home, and I had no problems along the way.
For the next 9 months, I continued to suffer with amoeba. Last October, I was waking up every morning, for about a month, just as sick as can be (I know what your thinking, and that was the first thing we tested for – but that test came back negative!), instead the doctor told me that I have an amoeba that is carrying a bacterial infection. He put me on an antibiotic that eventually helped me just before we took our trip to Zambia in November.
Here is where the cultural part of the story gets pretty good. In late January, one of our district leaders, Simon Pierre, came to our house in Kigali, and brought this liquid that was packaged in an old amarelle bottle, in complete seriousness Simon says “Hey guess what, I meet a man on the bus today, that sold me this bottle, it’s supposed to cure you of amoeba for 10 years.” Blake and I looked at each other and laughed. I said, “how can I know it’s safe?”, his response “This man put his name and phone number on the bottle”! In American culture, no way do you EVER buy something from “a man on the bus” and be able to trust anything about it. And to be able to say, oh I have his name and phone number, means NOTHING! However, in Rwandan culture, if you do not put your name and phone number on something it cannot be trusted. But the culture also knows how to use many of their plants for traditional medicine, so while it was strange to Blake and I, it wasn’t strange to Simon and his culture.
If I were to take this stuff, I was to take 4 tablespoons 2 times a day, and I couldn’t drink any tea or water 4 hours before and 4 hours after I took it! It took me a few weeks to decide if I was going to take this unknown drink. Simon kept calling and asking if I had started and how I was feeling. I finally told him that I was afraid it would give me diarrhea, his response “if it does, then you will know it’s working”. Well I finally decided to begin the drink, (Don’t Judge I was desperate, I was being hopeful for something, anything to make me feel better). I took about half the bottle, when my fear became a reality. All Simon said was “this is good, now you know its working”. I didn’t finish the full bottle, because he said Blake and I could share it. But after taking a little more then half the bottle, I finally stopped my “traditional medicine”.
Did it work? I don’t know, but what I do know, is that it has been 10 months, since the conclusion of my “medicine” and I haven’t had a single stomach problem since. Will it last 10 years? I don’t know. Will I get another amoeba? I don’t know. But I do know that right now, I feel good, really good!