Intro



The chronicles of Dominique Dagenais travelling to Ghana with Engineers Without Borders. Dom is one of two employees from TransCanada to join EWB and work alongside volunteers on a farming initiative in rural Ghana for 6 months.





Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Rock & Roll Gushiegu and the Malaria Blues

Three weekends ago I was preparing for my visit to Gushiegu to spend some time with Director Joseph. I don’t know what happened that weekend; I may have got hit by a chronic case of laziness. I could barely get out of bed and get the regular stuff done, like the laundry generated by 5 days of being on the road on the motto.
On Monday morning after packing my stuff I waited for the clinic to open and got tested for Malaria and parasites. The two previous nights I had a short period of high fever, hit the 102 in the middle of the night for a few hours. Then it went back to normal for the rest of the day. I have to mention that I take my temperature often. It’s a tell sign of Malaria and Typhoid Fever. About every bacterial or parasites infections will have the same set of similar symptoms, fever eliminates many options. The oddity with my temperature is that it always registers low. At first I thought it was the calibration of my $10 digital thermometer but after comparing with other thermometers it appears that I am always in the 97.1 to 97.7 degree C range. As opposed to the normal 98.6 C.
Maybe this is why I start sweating before everybody else??? Anyhow I tested negative to everything.
After getting a negative on the entire battery of tests; I hit the dusty trail. I made it to Gushiegu just in time to find out that my Director had been call for a meeting in Tamale and was leaving. Trying to salvage the situation I manage to tag along his MIS officer and get some insight on the District. The next day I went out with one of the extension agent, I least I could spend time getting a good feel for the District. The first night at the guest house, no fever and I got great sleep. Second night, Tuesday, I got the fever and barely slept. So on Wednesday I went to the Gushiegu Hospital to get tested again.
If you are sick, or healthy, the hospital is probably the last place you want to be. The waiting areas were just overcrowded with people sitting on the floor. By the look of it they were just camping waiting to be care for. Fortunately paying cash accelerated things; Paying for the initial consultation, getting the initial consultation, paying for the tests, getting the tests, getting the tests results, paying for the medications, getting the medications, only took 6 hours. Meanwhile people who came before me were still waiting to see a physician. Infants with severe diarrhoea had accident on the floor. Someone would wipe it with a dry cloth and 5 minutes later there would be someone sitting on the same spot. 
One of the waiting area, Gushiegu Hospital.
 I tested +1 for Malaria, which means it was in the early stage. If you are +2 it is very serious, +3 you’ll probably die. The doctor wanted to keep me in for 24 hours and I just refused. I just wanted to get my meds and go back to the Guest House without touching anything. Although I got started right away on the medication my condition kept getting worse. For the rest of that day and the next I just couldn’t get out of bed. Zachary, the innkeeper, made sure that I had food and water at all time. He even did a run to the Chemical Dealer (pharmacist) to get me some re hydration salts and help me to the bathroom a few times.
By Friday morning I was back on my feet. I packed, fed myself and finally got to spend 3 hours with the Director. The ride back home was uneventful except for the many breaks I took along the way to rest and rehydrate in the shade. It took me a while but I made it home safe and before dark.

This is Africa and we get sick. Sometimes it’s really bad, sometimes it’s just a pain in the ass; there are always cheap drugs available to fix the wide array of ailments we can host. But we get sick. You do all the right things; apply copious amount of bug repellent on your body, religiously use the mosquito net, wear long leg pants and long sleeve shirt at night. But you still can get Malaria. We try to eat the right “safe” food and drink the good water but we still end up with diarrhoea and bacterial infections.
As we speak Siera just finished her Malaria treatment, the second in the past month. Marielle was treating hers a few weeks back, Binnu last week. I am just starting to feel better from a severe case of the runs; my first one since my Malaria bout. It wasted my Wednesday and half of my Thursday. By Saturday I felt much better… I could list the ones from the team who got sick in the past month, one way or another, but it would include just about everyone. Maybe there is something we can do better? What can we do better?

Or maybe that’s just the way it is. It’s just where we are.
Africa is beautiful and exciting Mistress, exotic, full of surprises; but she is a demanding one.

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