malaria walking

I figured out why all the Quelimanians walk so slow…they all have walking malaria! Or so is my theory. I unfortunately know a little about this as I’ve survived several bouts of malaria in this lovely little African town. I have since learned to recognize the signs of when the pesky little parasites start to make their way into my bloodstream and begin to multiply. There is first the sudden, random fever in the middle of the night, usually accompanied with a random earache or sore throat. By morning, it is gone. Almost as if you dreamt it. Then you begin to feel sleepy during the day and sleepy during the night. Sleepy all the time. You enjoy a good 10 hours of shuteye. The day the parasites have multiplied to show you a positive on a blood test is the day you are walking with malaria. You step outside into the bright bright sunshine that instead of making you smile, it makes you wince in pain. You step onto the street and suddenly every person on foot and every bicycle is making their way towards you with uncontrollable speed. Your ears begin to ring and you suddenly feel out of control. All sensors are down. All guards are down. You feel vulnerable and exposed. You try to speed up your pace to get to where you are going faster so that all this intense stimuli can stop…only…you find you cannot walk at your normal speed. And you slow down. And then you notice, you are now walking at the pace of every other local in Quelimane. You have malaria.

The encouraging news to dwell on is that you have medicine to treat it and you know that within four or five days all will be right again and you will be walking at your normal pace. The sun will no longer hurt but feel like a kiss on those early mornings and your awareness of all the crazy chaos in the streets will once again be filtered and you are able to carry on about your day in total awareness without it freaking you out.

I wish all Quelimanians had the privilege of this worry-free feeling of medication they know will work. Many do not. Many are lying in the hospital on cots right now. The majority keep walking with malaria as they do not want to be on the cot, or cannot afford to be on the cot. Homes don a malaria sick family member lying on a mat and unable to get well due to another contributing disease that will take their life, AIDS. I keep walking when I have malaria. I have to. I live in Quelimane.