Fever and Chills in Dar
I have been busy, I guess – and sick, and not keeping up with events. Just returned to Pemba yesterday after a nice long weekend in Dar, where I went ostensibly to interview one of the candidates for the team leader position (and by far the best among them) and to attend a reception at the UK Embassy. In fact, my own agenda included a few other items – manicure, pedicure, hair color, eyebrow threading and shopping for chocolate and wine. The most wonderful part of the weekend was spending time with Geir and Jo Sundet and their amazing three children: Robin, Tara and Dylan. In every respect it would have been a perfect weekend. I got hot showers, good food and time to sleep without the damn roosters, cats and bush babies screaching away. But Thursday and Friday nights I did wake up in the middle of the night with a burning sensation in my gut, just below my ribs. Thought it was the change in diet from nothing but rice and sugar to vegetables and fish. But then on Saturday night, I awoke with a much more searing pain and ended up really sick – vomiting, diarrhea, fever and chills. I called Jo in the morning and she came right over to get me and took me to the best clinic on the peninsula. Oddly enough, we ran into Peter and Diane Corner there. Her parents had just flown in from London and had gotten sick on the plane.
Two days later I am almost 100% better. The doc gave me Cipro and some oral rehydration salts along with anti-nausea medication just in case I needed it to get back to Pemba. I was supposed to have left on Sunday afternoon with Michael, because we were interviewing the rest of the candidates for Team Leader at the PHL on Monday. But I wasn’t in any condition to fly.
Instead, I spent much of the day lying in bed at Jo and Geir’s. Then Jo took me back to my hotel and I crashed there, waking up for a while to order a couple of Coca Colas and a bacon, egg and tomato sandwich, hold the bacon and tomato. Ate a bit, slept again, meaning to shower and put on PJs but never getting round to it. Woke up at 3:30, showered and went back to bed until Michael called around 8 am to say that he had received a text from me in the middle of the night. It was just making sure he had a place to go for the interviews. Once I was up, though, I felt so much better I thought maybe I could make it to Pemba. But I had a couple of important errands to take care of first.
The one most annoying errand was to retrieve my Citicard from the Stambic Bank office on Old Bagamoyo Road near the Shoppers Plaza. I had gone to Shoppers Plaza on Saturday to get photos of the village printed up. But the photo place took only cash, so I went in search of an ATM. The bank at the shopping mall only takes Visa, so I had to walk to the next mall to find an ATM that accepted Mastercard. And that ATM ate my card but gave me no cash. I tried calling the hotline number on the ATM only to find some extremely unhelpful person who said I’d have to call back on Monday because the bank was closed. What’s the point of having a hot line if all you can do is tell me the bank is closed, I virtually screamed at him. But this is Africa, madam, said the security guard who witnessed my meltdown.
I had thought I would have to send Jo to get my card on Monday, but inasmuch as my illness had delayed my departure, I got my card back and my photos. The funny thing about the bank is that they made me go through all kinds of security to get my card back and insisted that someone must have forced the card into the machine in an incorrect manner. When the handed it back to me I asked if I would be safe in using the ATM machine to get cash. Of course, they assured me. And we’re here in case anything goes wrong. So back I went, got my cash without a hitch. But then… Yes again, the machine ate my card. I had to go back into the bank and go through the same procedure but without all the forms.
