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Published: July 28th 2009
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Day 33 Chitimba 10.7.09
An awful sleep for both me and Chelle (mainly due to me making noises and chucking the covers on and off all night) and I was still feeling really crap. Our tour leader takes me to the nearest doctors who inform me that I have Clinical Malaria and that I need Malaria cure medicine ASAP with plenty of rest. Luckily our truck has Malaria cure medicine and I start taking them, still feeling rubbish with my temperature hitting 39.5 (high enough to put me in a coma apparently). It’s decided that if my condition doesn’t improve by tomorrow then I’d visit the hospital in Mzuzu.
Day 34 Chitimba - Mzuzu 11.7.09
My condition isn’t improving and my original symptoms are getting worse so we drive to Mzuzu where everyone is given instructions to buy fancy dress costumes from the local market for a big party in a few days, whist I get to go to the hospital. At St Johns hospital with my tour leader and describing my symptoms to Dr Moses he get me a Malaria test done (which shows as inconclusive due to the anti malaria medicine I‘ve already taken). Dr Moses
advises that the Malaria cure medicine I’m on is too weak and I need to be kept in and out on a drip with ‘Quinine’ I reluctantly agree and get fitted with the drip in my room and wait for Michelle to get here. When she does get to the hospital and sees me she just smile and say’s “only you” which we both laugh at. Chelle agrees to sleep in the hospital and sets up on the freezing cold concrete floor. Whist I’m hooked up to a drip in a hospital in one of the top 10 poorest countries in the world! This is not the authentic African experience I was after.
Day 35 Mzuzu - Kande Beach, Malawi 12.7.09
After a restless night with constant visitors checking up on me Dr Moses comes in and checks my vitals and says there’s a great improvement, to which I agree stating that I’m feeling miles better than the past few days and I can be discharged in the afternoon providing my temperature is still down and the earlier symptoms have eased off. We spend the rest of the morning talking and playing Chelle’s Nintendo DS in the hospital
room until about 1pm when the doctor comes back to check me one last time and tells me that my bodies reacted well to the drip and I can be discharged and take oral medication.
I’m so grateful to this doctor who is the only one the hospital has, he was in the middle his daily 24hr shift, half way through his 7 day week, this guy is a saint. We say our goodbye’s to the hospital staff and jump in a cab for a 1½ cab ride to Kande Beach to meet up with the rest of the group.
When we finally arrive at Kande Beach everyone is really surprised to see us (not expecting to see until a couple of days time in Lilongwe) and they make us feel really welcome. The group is in the middle of cooking 2 pigs for the hog roast (the real reason I wanted to get discharged early) and everyone is asking how I am and telling me I look much better. After a few hours of moving about and talking to people I decide that I need to rest as the whole day has taken it out of me. Later that
evening Dr Moses sends me a text wishing me back to health and giving god’s blessing (which was very touching). We both crash out fairly early tonight.
Day 36 Kande Beach Malawi 13.7.09
This morning Mike managed to eat some toast (thankfully hes starting to get an appetite back) and Michelle was going snorkelling. When she got to the boat with snorkel equiptment, camera and waterproof case she struggled to get in and fell cutting her knee in the process. When it came time to get out the boat again there was blood running down her leg and then came the warning to watch out for sharks! Not fooled though as the lake is fresh water and has no sharks. The snorkelling was terrifying, the open water fear seems to be increasing although she lasted longer than Thailand a few years back. After finding a rock to sit on she discovered the waterproof case is not waterproof!! Scrambling up the rocks of the island she was snorkelling at and desperately trying to dry the camera in the sun she realised it was too late, it was broken. Back at shore Chelle went to check on Mikes progress
but he had actually gotten worse again, he was too active the previous night and was really suffering now so he got his orders to stay in bed and only leave to go to the loo. Michelle went into the village with Rachel and met ‘Black Rhino’ (we have also met Mr Loverman, Vin Diesel, George Washington, Captain Morgan and many more) who escorted them around and introduced them to the village life. We were challenged to a game of Bao, the board has approx 32 holes, 4 rows of 8 and each hole has 2marbles in, the 1st player picks up the marbles in any of their holes (the 2rows closest) and puts one in each of the next holes then picks up the marbles where the last was placed and does the same until the last marble to be dropped has been placed into an empty space. When that happens that player then takes the marbles belonging to the other player that are opposite that marble, the loser has all their marbles taken 1st. We played 2games and won twice with loads of locals crowded around watching. We looked in shops and Michelle bought a bowl and got
the man to carve Malawi 2009 on it. Back at camp Michelle continued to slave over Mike and he started to feel a bit better again.
Day 37 Kande Beach - Lilongwe 14.7.09
We had another drive day to get to our camp in Lilongwe so we just tried to rest on the truck, Mike needs to reserve his energy as he’s still trying to get over the malaria. Michelle set up the tent and ordered Mike to lay in it for the rest of the evening. Michelle was on cook group again (Mike got out of his on hog roast day) and took some dinner to Mike although he didn’t like it because interfering people had chucked a load of herbs in and it could really be tasted. There is always that problem on cook group, certain people always try to have a hand in any cook group because they want their own ingredients in, like mint in spaghetti Bolognaise! It ends up ruining good food. Rant over!
Day 38 Lilongwe 15.7.09
Again Mike stayed at camp while Michelle went in to the city. The truck went off without an anouncement to everyone
so I didn’t know to get my money out, oh well, it was easy enough to borrow some. It was a 20 minute walk to the city and we discovered a Nandos, I didn’t get on though, damn this budget. We went to the craft market and I bought a carving of Africa with the big 5 for the equivalent of only a couple of dollars. After getting lunch and a card to send home we made the walk back to the camp. I decided the swimming pool looked nice so I changed into my bikini and as I put a foot in I changed my mind, it was the coldest water ever! Another early night was on the cards tonight as we would be up early again.
Day 39 Lilongwe - Tete, Mozambique 16.7.09
An early morning and an all day drive day today, we didn’t even have time to stop for breakfast and lunch so they were both made and eaten on the truck meaning it was little more than a sandwich and banana. The visa for Mozambique was $30 cheaper than originally expected which was welcome after the expense of the hospital we obviously didn’t budget for. We were stuck at the boarder for about 3 ½ hours, the longest yet. When we finally arrived at the bush camp after nearly 11hours on the road we set up tents under the best starry sky I had ever seen. The Milky Way was so clear to see so we took the tarp off the tent and laid looking up into the night.
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