11
May
2007
May
2007
5
May
2007
May
2007
Misery Loves Company7
T (Tragedy) + t (time) = C (Comedy) may not qualify as a scientific law in the Newtonian sense. However, it has proven to be a fairly effective approximation of my experiences thus far in Tanzania (at least the ones in which I was the victim).  Since the incident relayed below happened back in January, before classes had even started at UL Secondary, I have safely recovered from any and all injuries here relayed: physical, moral and psychological. It is my sincerest wish that my past pain may now become your present pleasure. I had originally written up this little piece for a dear friend of mine who was going through a rough patch for a little while, operating under the assumption that a little Schadenfreude can be good for ails ya. Enjoy! (This one’s for you Speedwagon.)
It began with an unusually loud scratching noise in the middle of the night. The first time I had heard this particular sound, I could not for the life of me figure it out, pacing throughout the house, periodically glancing outside and even craning my ear towards the ceiling boards.  By this time, however, I well knew what I was hearing. There was a rodent in my house. Somewhere in my wooden cabinets, it was rooting through my pots and pans, dishes, spices and preserved foods, chewing through plastic bags of flour, nuts and fruit, shitting on my silverware. I well knew what I was up against and the price of failure on my part seemed truly unbearable.
I sat up in my bed, pulled back the mosquito net and slipped into my house shoes. Armed only with a broom and flashlight, I crept out of my bedroom and into the main room towards the cabinet and the source of the somehow deafening grating, fingernails on chalkboard disguised as rodent claws on wood. I was ready to beat the son-of-a-bitch to death if given the chance. Using the broom handle, I gently pried open the cabinet doors. The screetching stopped. I became aware of a gentle rain hitting the aluminum roof overhead.Â
Cautiously lowering on bended knees, I peered with flashlight into the simple two-compartment cabinet. There simply seemed to be no place to hide amid the handful of tupperware containers and tins of powdered milk, instant coffee and jars of honey and jam. I stabbed blindly with the broom handle at the interior, giving up all pretence of stealth.  With the instantaneous conduction of an electrical charge, The Rat (definitely not the mouse I had been secretly hoping to encounter) leaped from the cabinet almost bowling me over as it recaptured the element of surprise. It charged half-way around the room before I had managed so much as one feeble swing of the broom. Long before I could even think about rearing up for a second assault, I had to watch in sheer horror as the consequences of my actions dawned on me.  The Rat finished encircling the main room and headed directly into my bedroom, with its multi-compartmented closet, piles of clothes in three of the four corners, and innumerable other far-superior hiding places and vantage points.
I cursed myself aloud with the sudden realization of the inevitable course of events I had set into motion. Try as I might to rationalize, the inherent inefficacy of so-called free will was no salve. If only I had stayed warm and in bed and given The Rat its rightful share of my plentiful resources. I could have perhaps kept time to the rhythm of its scratches, rocking myself gently to sleep. But now, my bedroom, anywhere but my bedroom!
It is now 1:30 AM (or 7:30 at night as the locals say). I stalk back into my bedroom, broom in one hand, flashlight in the other. Of course, Now I have the good sense to leave the door leading outside to the courtyard wide open, hoping The Rat will accept the invitation. After twenty futile minutes of haphazardly poking and proding about my bedroom, however, I despair that the case is hopeless. I have already blown my cover in a display of sheer oafish boobery. It is dark, my solar flashlight has begun to lose its charge and fade, and the guerilla war always favors the native. I am the colonizer in the bright red “shoot-me” coat and I know it. Crushed, dejected, I sulk back into the main room, propping myself up in a chair facing the bedroom door. Stubbornly, I convince myself that I can wait out the enemy, lure him back to the treasures of the cabinet and perhaps see him out the courtyard door or at least cede back the original territory and sleep soundly in a gentle Rat-free bliss.
By about 3:30 AM, it was again time to reassess the strategy. The Rat could gnaw on my face while I slept for all I cared at this point. I might have even voiced this judgment aloud, although the haze of historical memory still clouds this period of the night. At any event, I had surrendered. The Rat had won. I would return to bed, tucking my mosquito net tightly into the space between the mattress and the frame. I would pretend the creature that feared neither wood nor plastic would somehow be repelled by thin netting. In any event, this would all still be preferable to camping out in the chair, fully exposed and sleeping poorly. As I cautiously returned to my bedroom, I listened for any sounds of The Rat and, hearing none, dozed gently off to a much deserved sleep.
It was maybe around 4:00 AM when I lept out of bed and rushed headlong into the courtyard. For this part of the story, however, I need to back up a bit. Not having any electricity in my house and therefore not having any proper refrigeration system has taken some getting used to. For example, eggs and pineapples last quite a long time in the cool temperatures of Tanzania’s southern highlands. Some fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, may turn rapidly and must be consumed during a shorter time frame. The real issue, however, has been with cooked food. I have long grown accustomed to cooking in bulk and freezing, enjoying the time I spend cooking but recognizing that my slow pace makes daily preparation something of an excessive commitment. Here in Tanzania, I am also more conscious of wasting food, which has truly taxed my ability to cook just enough for maximum work efficiency without dumping out kilos of food in a land of significant malnutrition. So, I have learned, for example, that I can cook a meal and re-cook that meal the second day with a minimum of effort. The lesson I learned the hard way is that you cannot re-cook again, saving your stir-fry with steamed vegetables for Day 3. No matter what.Â
In my case, it was on this “Night of the Rat” that I had eaten rice and greens on the 3rd day, to which I had added additional fresh vegetables and curry. I’m still having a hard time even smelling curry powder. Returning to my story, my self-inflicted food poisoning kicked in right after I’d resigned myself to the Rat-occupied bedroom and drifted off to sleep. My irrepressible urge to bolt out into the courtyard was quickly followed by a long and protracted bout of what I can only describe as projectile vomiting. I you’ve had the occasion to experience this phenomenon, you’ll instantly recognize the descriptor.  In case you don’t know, there’s (1) Vomiting (2) Intense Vomiting and then there’s (3) Projectile Vomiting.
When my body had satisfied itself that the contents of my stomach were sufficiently empty, priority then shifted to the lower tract. I had barely managed to race to the pit latrine and pull off my pants when a virtual waterfall of diarrhea errupted out of my ass. On the bright side, there was very little I could do to consciously control the situation. I could easily resign myself. I simply cleared a path and my bowels took care of the rest. I suppose it would be equally accurate to refer to this particular episode as projectile diarrhea as well, but there was really no opportunity to “project” anywhere but into the pit latrine (which the locals call a “choo,” pronounced ch-owe).  Therefore, I think I’ll leave it with the metaphor “Waterfall” and leave it at that. But no matter. Nor do I intend to dwell simply on the scatology of the scenario. After all, it was not long after exercising my colon that I resumed projectile vomiting, at least until the mass failed to keep up with the force.Â
Now I should point out that it seemed fairly clear to me at this juncture that my body was desperately trying to void everthing I had deigned to introduce into it. Also, by my shivering uncontrollably at the mere thought of curry (although obviously not the culprit, guilty by association nonetheless), I assumed rather unproblematically, it seemed to me, that I had fallen victim to food poisoning. But more on that in just a bit. Needless to say, when I dragged what was left of my body to bed, my concern about the rat had completely vanished (no thanks for small blessings). I would have no happily kept the animal as a pet, furnishing it with its own cabinet playground and guest room if it meant I would once again be able to keep food in my digestive system.
I was already thankful, though I had no energy to make use of it yet, that I had several packets of powdered chicken soup mix and bouillion in the cabinet, the rat cabinet I mean. As a brief aside, I had won these prized food items in a 5-round game of Texas-Hold-Em with three other volunteers. When one of our colleagues unexpectedly ET’ed (Early Terminated, in other words went back home to the United States) we had gambled her possessions away – far more valuable to us at this point than to her what with her imminent return to the land of malls and supermarkets. I had been lucky enough to win her solar flashlight (a Christmas gift that had been given to all volunteers from the U.S. Ambassador) as well as these several packets of soup and bouillion. But anyway, back to lying in bed, a mere shell of a human being.
As expected, the Fundi (think handyman, although the word refers to any skilled person) showed up at my house by 9:00 AM to continue his work fixing the doors in my courtyard. As I had given him some avocados from my tree the previous day, he was kind enough to bring me a bag of carrots, fresh from his garden. It was all I could do simply to walk outside, inform him that I was sick, thank him for his gift and promptly return to bed. Something as basic to my life here as speaking Kiswahili was almost beyond me. I did not even bother to lock the door to my courtyard as I threw myself back into bed. Naturally, the Fundi reported to the teachers that I was out for the count, or some suitable Kiswahili version of that idiom. Of course, they came by individually to visit, spacing out their housecalls just far enough apart to ensure that I could not get back to sleep.
When Tanzanians are sick, apparently, they love nothing more than to be visited all day long by a procession of friends and well-wishers. I have tried to grasp this cultural incongruity. “I look and feel like shit, need bed rest to recover, . . . what a perfect time to have company over!” And so, I found myself sitting and keeping company with my array of individual guests over the span of the morning and afternoon, in the very room where I had stalked The Rat not several hours earlier. “Pole sana.” (I’m very sorry) I heard many times. Asante sana (Thank you very much) I continued to reply. This actually represented the bulk of my conversations. What else to talk about? Well, there’s vomiting, diarrhea, rodent infestation, what do you want to talk about?
Eventually, I would express how little sleep I had gotten (Pole sana, Asante sana) and excuse myself to bed, neglecting to see my visitors out or even close/lock the door for that matter. I had at the time no patience for playing host and was still dumbfounded that I would be put into the position.  Nevertheless the sincere looks of concern from my guests kept my frustration from turning into bitterness or anger. They meant well; we just were not on the same page – or some suitable Kiswahili version of that idiom. However, the spontaneous attempts at diagnosis almost pushed me over the edge.
“You probably have malaria,” was the first bit of good cheer my guests spread with their arrival, engaging in helpful conversation. “I don’t have malaria,” I insisted, “it was food poisoning.” Yet their zeal for misdiagnosis continued unabated. “Maybe it is cholera.” Charming. Just what I needed with my hair-trigger vomitous stomach, the taste of bile in my mouth and a possible rat infestation: the doomsday doctors to keep me from much needed sleep. Of course, the malaria diagnosis I had come to expect. Tanzanians tend to assume that the first sign of sickness is malaria. Frankly, it’s not a bad impulse. Treating yourself for malaria when you don’t actually have the disease is still preferable to death-by-malaria. Then again, Tanzanians, in my observations, might call a general sickness malaria without bothering to take it seriously enough to treat. Stigmatized diseases like HIV/AIDS are also usually disguised as malaria. You don’t go to a funeral and hear that the cause of death was AIDS; it was malaria.Â
As I said, the malaria thing I expected. However, over the subsequent days, whenever discussion of my sickness arose (long after it had abated), the teachers refused to accept my diagnosis. “I think maybe you were very tired from working in the garden,” I heard. Fed up with this bizarre obstinancy, I finally snapped. “Being tired from working in the garden doesn’t make you puke and shit your guts out!  My body was clearly getting rid of rotten food that I had re-cooked one time to many and it’s my own damn fault. Trust me. THIS WAS FOOD POISONING!”
“But, if you tell the Peace Corps that you had food poisoning,” one of the teachers said to me, “they will think someone has tried to poison you.”
“Oh,” I said, everything finally becoming clear to me. “No,” I now calmly assured him, “food poisoning is just the name we use for describing the symptoms that come with eating rotten food. The medical officers at the Peace Corps know this. No one will think I was deliberately poisoned.”
How sweet. They were worried I would be sent home. Who could stay angry and dwell on such a thing? In fact, I’m feeling better about it already.