Food Poisoning

This weekend was our rural homestay outside of Kitgum, Uganda.  I was pretty excited to spend some time in the village, sleeping in grass huts and playing with children.  I ended up getting food poisoning, which was bound to happen during three months in a country lacking clean water infrastructure, but somehow I was hoping I would make it through unscathed.

                The first night we had posho, maize flour porridge, and greens cooked in peanut and sesame sauce.  I’ve hated both dishes every other time I had them, but this time it was delicious.  I still ate a normal amount, but the next day I couldn’t keep anything down.  We only had three days in the homestay, so I was super reluctant to leave.  I tried sleeping, but every 5 minutes a kid would come into the hut and look at the white girl so I didn’t end up sleeping.  My host mother kept trying to get me to eat, because food is a Ugandan mother’s answer to everything, but it wasn’t particularly helpful.

Did a focus group with food poisoning.  This is research in Africa.

                Every family member that knew that I was sick kept talking about the weather- maybe I was sick because of the weather; I wasn’t used to their weather, it was cold today, etc.   It wasn’t that hot, maybe in the 80’s.  I told them it was me adjusting to Ugandan germs, but every way that I tried to explain it didn’t really work.  Most people responded with this air of superiority, saying that I had a weak stomach.

                My host family was a pretty prominent family in a Born Again Church, so they laid hands on me and prayed for my illness to improve.  I thought I was getting better as they day went on, so I ate some dinner with the family.  That was a bad idea.  As dusk fell, I went to the pit latrine to puke, and when I opened the door three cockroaches crawled out.  I decided I couldn’t handle being this sick in the rural homestay.

The pro-American latrine

                I called the one American working for my program so I didn’t have to deal with a language barrier.  Within minutes, they sent someone to come get me and take me to see a doctor.  The doctor did a blood test almost immediately after we got there, and I sat in the lobby of the hospital with bare cement walls drinking bottled water and watching The Sound of Music while I waited for my results.  Simon, who had picked up, said that Helen, another staff person was on her way.  I told him that two staff people weren’t necessary, but his response was, “Helen is your mother.  She is coming.  You need your mother when you are sick.”

                The doctor came back and said that I didn’t have malaria, but that one particular kind of white blood cell count was high.  He couldn’t give me any more information so he told me to come back the next day when other doctors were there (it was a Sunday night).  He did, however, give me Paracetamol for my headache.  The conversation went a little like this, (imagine an African accent)

“What is this?”

“Paracetamol.  For the headache.”

“Ok, but what about the nausea?  Can I take it on an empty stomach?”

“You will not vomit.  It will be fine.”

“What about my anti-malarial drugs?  They usually make me nauseous, even if I take them with food.  Should I take them or should I wait?”

“You will not vomit.”

“There’s a sulfa drug allergy in my family.  Is this a sulfa drug?”

“No.  It will be fine.”

“ok.”

“For the consultation, 17,000 shillings.”  (20,000 shillings is $8)

“Does that include the prescription?”

“No, I am not charging you for that.”

I had to call my mother in America to ask her to Google paracetamol because I didn’t trust this doctor who couldn’t tell me what my blood test meant.  Turns out it was acetaminophen.

The next day, I went back to the hospital to see the doctor who was capable of reading my blood test.  He took one look at it and said that I had food poisoning, but he did not want to tell me over the phone last night.   I told him I had been in a rural homestay, and he said that made sense because the hygiene in the village is not good.  He really did not want me to go back to the village, but I really wanted to take advantage of my opportunity to sleep in a grass thatched hut while I had a chance.  He was really hesitant, but ended up prescribing me antibiotics to take with the food.  I went back to my host family for one more night and was so glad that I did.