Dama feebar - What happens when you're sick in a foreign country

I know that it has been almost a week since my last post.

I was sick.

Like, incredibly sick.

As in, had to call a house-call doctor and explain in broken French, Wolof, and English how to get to my house using a map of Dakar in bed and hope for the best. When the doctor arrived, I had a temperature of 103.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Being sick is awful. Being sick far away from home is equally awful. Being sick in a foreign country with almost no means to contact home or touch base with normal support mechanisms is on my Top 5 List of Things I Despise.


And my yaay almost took me to the hospital because she was so worried, but I talked her out of it and asked her to let me just rest it off.

Unfortunately, I am still recovering. While they gave me antibiotics to take care of the sinus infection, the flu part and resident sore throat that makes it hard to swallow decided to stick around for much longer. I still cannot swallow even water without pain in my throat.

Needless to say, the fatigue I was feeling in last Monday's post was a lead-in to three days in bed and catching up on Wolof classes from home as I oscillated between shivering and breaking out in a sweat. My host family was absolutely wonderful to me, sending out for the medicines I needed, getting me chocolate milk and bananas to help with "force" (building strength through eating so I could get better more quickly), and yaay bringing her personal blanket so I would hopefully warm up.

But even with all of that, I still decided to make my way to Saint Louis/Ndar this weekend with my friends from the Baobab Center to get away from the bustle of the city and have some peace and quiet.

My next post will be about that trip, and I'll include lots of pictures of the house and town center, but I just wanted to check in with everyone and let you know that I am healing slowly and hope to be operating at 80% by the end of the week.