It’s been some time since my last post, which has largely been the result of me not having enough of a significant strand of coherent ideas on the same topic (and also laziness). However, yesterday I was really sick and it got me thinking: how am I going to handle illness while I am in Tanzania? I can’t help but think that the first time I start to feel ill I will worry that I have malaria, even though I will be taking antimalarial medication. My cold symptoms were a fever, chills, a headache, sweats, fatigue, and some muscle pain, all of which are also symptoms of malaria.
One of the luxuries of living in not only a temperate zone, but also in a country as rich as the United States is that most contractible diseases are relatively harmless, and/or easily treated. Malaria is not relatively harmless, but it is easily prevented and treated, which makes the fact that in 2010 around 655,000 people died from malaria especially tragic. Most of these deaths, says the World Health Organization, “occur among children living in Africa where a child dies every minute from malaria.” This is because children have not been able to build up any resistance to malaria – most adults who have been exposed to malaria over the course of their lifetimes have developed a degree of resistance to the disease, and when they do contract it, it is easily and cheaply treated.
Basically, getting sick is an unpleasant enough experience in the comfort of American life, and I am not altogether looking forward to getting sick in Tanzania, where my standard of living will be considerably lower. That said, I am still excitedly counting the days until I leave. Being sick makes it much easier to appreciate not being sick, and I am feeling awfully good about being healthy right now.