While in bed discussing the Periodic Table or Elements (of which I know little about) I tried to lift my head in a effort to jar a point, and suddenly the whole room started spinning. I laid my head back down and closed my eyes, trying to regain stability. Four hours of immobility passed, and the astoundingly acute vertigo feeling failed to die down.
Stefan filled a two liter water bottle with rehydration salts and forced the whole thing down my throat. But after two concoctions, we realized that the problem may be more than just dehydration, as the tunnel vision still had hold. After using Stefan's mother's expertise derived from being an EMT, we took her advice and figured if the vertigo hadn't subsided by morning we'd find a way out of the village and into a hospital in the nearby town.
I'm a pretty firm believer in how much control the mind has over our physical health (knowing fully well it's a complex mixture of the two), so we tried to lighten our spirits by listening to George Carlin and watching Jim Gaffigan while I kept the entire upper half of my body propped up for the night. But sitting at the breakfast table the next morning I realized the situation in my head hadn't really improved. We had to figure out a way to evacuate the village, leaving behind our mountain bikes, our once-reliable form of transport. Taxis were out of the question on a Saturday, so Ba Manoa, the Peace Corps driver, took the risk of being scolded for a saintly action (it's against Peace Corps rules to pick up a non-volunteer, no matter one's home country), and met us near the village in his land cruiser. Smiling the whole way through, he dropped us at the hospital half an hour later.
We shuffled up to the reception office, a carved out box in the back wall, and paid our dues of $8 for all services. Zambia, as poor a country as it is, has Universal Health Care. Only there are graver issues: Lack of medicines, equipment and space. But we could not have felt more lucky to incur a payment this cheap, as it would cost at least $100 for an initial consultation in America.
The nurse took my blood pressure, which was extremely low, a definite surface cause of my dizziness. Within a few minutes, I was admitted.
As Peace Corps has rules about where in Zambia to accept admittance to a hospital, and which ones are reliable in using clean syringes, Stefan had to step outside the room and make multiple phone calls in order to ensure my safety in Mansa General. I ran a low-risk of acquiring any blood-transmitted diseases here. Once we got the go-ahead, the doctor on duty opted for a saline drip and tested for malaria. I relaxed on a bare, raised bed in a bare room. Swirling around me were two more beds, a desk, some sparse metallic cabinets, a leaky faucet and a caved-in ceiling. At least there was electricity.
The clock ticked as slowly as the saline drip, and we quickly recognized how long I'd be there, so Stefan left to get us some french fries and juice from a nearby market. While it seemed a bit uncomfortable to be left in the common hospital room, my hunger gave in all too easily.
Lying alone on the hospital bed, getting pumped with a saline solution, of which I was already well aware wasn't an aid to the problem--we had already determined it was not dehydration--I turned my head to the side and watched as frail women unwrapped their chitenges to slip a newborn onto the beds. The babies struggled to make out their cries or intentionally move their limbs. They were trembling. The doctor would take their temperature, place a cold towel on their heads, and instruct them to enter the next room over. I couldn't understand the conversations, and arrived at my own conclusions; be they true or not. In a country where 14 percent of the population carries the disease, either HIV or extreme malnutrition were all I could come up with.
And here I was, a spoiled American girl who let her blood pressure drop by failing to eat and drink properly and distorting her equilibrium by flying in too many planes in the past year, sitting with a saline drip after an insertion in the skin that made me cringe; A simple, harmless procedure in which a Zambian women wouldn't bat an eye. I felt like I was just taking up space. It was the first time in the country I had spent more than an hour alone, and the first time I felt a real dose of shame; the kind where you realize you are just a direct manifestation of a common stereotype about white women, and you are powerless in the moment to change. These people suffer so much more than we do, and as a result seem stronger than steel.
But the doctor and nurses didn't seem to take note. They laughed at me, sure, but not in a malicious way. They cared for me as they would any other patient. They used what means they had to get me better, looked me in the eye, and wished me well.
Stefan filled a two liter water bottle with rehydration salts and forced the whole thing down my throat. But after two concoctions, we realized that the problem may be more than just dehydration, as the tunnel vision still had hold. After using Stefan's mother's expertise derived from being an EMT, we took her advice and figured if the vertigo hadn't subsided by morning we'd find a way out of the village and into a hospital in the nearby town.
I'm a pretty firm believer in how much control the mind has over our physical health (knowing fully well it's a complex mixture of the two), so we tried to lighten our spirits by listening to George Carlin and watching Jim Gaffigan while I kept the entire upper half of my body propped up for the night. But sitting at the breakfast table the next morning I realized the situation in my head hadn't really improved. We had to figure out a way to evacuate the village, leaving behind our mountain bikes, our once-reliable form of transport. Taxis were out of the question on a Saturday, so Ba Manoa, the Peace Corps driver, took the risk of being scolded for a saintly action (it's against Peace Corps rules to pick up a non-volunteer, no matter one's home country), and met us near the village in his land cruiser. Smiling the whole way through, he dropped us at the hospital half an hour later.
We shuffled up to the reception office, a carved out box in the back wall, and paid our dues of $8 for all services. Zambia, as poor a country as it is, has Universal Health Care. Only there are graver issues: Lack of medicines, equipment and space. But we could not have felt more lucky to incur a payment this cheap, as it would cost at least $100 for an initial consultation in America.
The nurse took my blood pressure, which was extremely low, a definite surface cause of my dizziness. Within a few minutes, I was admitted.
As Peace Corps has rules about where in Zambia to accept admittance to a hospital, and which ones are reliable in using clean syringes, Stefan had to step outside the room and make multiple phone calls in order to ensure my safety in Mansa General. I ran a low-risk of acquiring any blood-transmitted diseases here. Once we got the go-ahead, the doctor on duty opted for a saline drip and tested for malaria. I relaxed on a bare, raised bed in a bare room. Swirling around me were two more beds, a desk, some sparse metallic cabinets, a leaky faucet and a caved-in ceiling. At least there was electricity.
The clock ticked as slowly as the saline drip, and we quickly recognized how long I'd be there, so Stefan left to get us some french fries and juice from a nearby market. While it seemed a bit uncomfortable to be left in the common hospital room, my hunger gave in all too easily.
Lying alone on the hospital bed, getting pumped with a saline solution, of which I was already well aware wasn't an aid to the problem--we had already determined it was not dehydration--I turned my head to the side and watched as frail women unwrapped their chitenges to slip a newborn onto the beds. The babies struggled to make out their cries or intentionally move their limbs. They were trembling. The doctor would take their temperature, place a cold towel on their heads, and instruct them to enter the next room over. I couldn't understand the conversations, and arrived at my own conclusions; be they true or not. In a country where 14 percent of the population carries the disease, either HIV or extreme malnutrition were all I could come up with.
And here I was, a spoiled American girl who let her blood pressure drop by failing to eat and drink properly and distorting her equilibrium by flying in too many planes in the past year, sitting with a saline drip after an insertion in the skin that made me cringe; A simple, harmless procedure in which a Zambian women wouldn't bat an eye. I felt like I was just taking up space. It was the first time in the country I had spent more than an hour alone, and the first time I felt a real dose of shame; the kind where you realize you are just a direct manifestation of a common stereotype about white women, and you are powerless in the moment to change. These people suffer so much more than we do, and as a result seem stronger than steel.
But the doctor and nurses didn't seem to take note. They laughed at me, sure, but not in a malicious way. They cared for me as they would any other patient. They used what means they had to get me better, looked me in the eye, and wished me well.
