Welcome to America

So, as you may know, I have been preparing to take the GRE. I got a few test books and went to town on them for about two months, and then this week I went to Lilongwe to take the test. I had some things to get done at the Peace Corps office, so I went down two days before the test to get my work done and get into a GRE state of mind.

The night before I left I felt kind of sick, I puked up the banana I ate for lunch, skipped dinner, and spent the night in an uncomfortable sweaty-sleepy-shaky state. That morning I felt better, if a little sluggish from lack of sleep, so I threw myself on a bus for the 7 hour trip to Lilongwe. The bus trip sucked, of course, and someone next to me ralphed into her chitenge, which was uncomfortable since you can't exactly get off of a bus here in Malawi once you are on it- this is also the reason why I don't drink water when I travel here. By the time I got to the Peace Corps office, I was tired, thirsty and generally ratty looking, but I had a doctor's appointment for my mid term physical, so I went in to see the medical staff.

It took them about two seconds to diagnose me with Malaria.

Now, I'm a good little volunteer, I take my anti-malarials, but sometimes I forget, especially on the weekends, so I must have forgotten to take my meds last Saturday and Sunday, which is when the filthy little vampire bug must have gotten me. I guess though that when you take your meds that the symptoms aren't as bad, so it makes sense that I just thought I had food poisioning.

The worst day was yesterday, when I couldn't keep anything down, and they hooked me up to an IV drip all day, and my temperture spiked to something around 110. That sucked. The doctor let me use his computer to see if I could cancel or re-schedule my test if I had a doctor's note. Nope. All cancelations must be made at least three days in advance, well, three days ago I felt ducky. He was shocked- 'So what, you aren't allowed to get sick? welcome to America'

So what about the test? Well, I took it this morning at the testing center at the embassy, it was a paper based test, and the examiner had some serious time keeping issues (he cut us off early on the first verbal section, dick), but I did it. Now I need to go sleep.