It was just a cold

I came down with a cold after my recent trip to Lesotho. This is hardly surprising since it was very cold at night and very hot in the day and this is usually all it takes to get me sick. This cold, however, was quite different than any cold I have had in the past due to life in the village. From the reaction of the community, one might think that no one had ever had a cold in their lives before (this is not true for this is not even the first time I have had a cold in Khula village). As typical with any illness, I wanted to get plenty of rest to recover as quickly as possible. However, this is not what my host mother had in mind. She was constantly knocking on the door, “you need to eat,” “you are eating too much,” “you need a doctor,” “you need to take pills,” “you are taking your pills are the wrong time,” “you need more sleep,” and my personal favorite, “you are sleeping too much,” and so on for three days straight. (I have come to understand now that people believe that if you sleep when you are sick, you will die in your sleep, which I suppose is true for people who are sick with an actual serious disease, but as far as I know rarely happens to those with sinus trouble.) Apparently, my host mother called the Induna (chief of the village) to report my condition, who then called my organization, who drove out to my house to check on me. I wouldn’t have been surprise if Jacob Zuma himself had showed up at my door to make sure I was ok. When I did got back to work, every single person in the office knew of my “condition” and asked how things were going. Now, I do, to some extent, appreciate that they are concerned about me and they know it is a big deal if anything were to happen to their American, but at the time of the illness, I was not thinking about this and only aggravated.

After three days of the cold, I recovered significantly, but was still suffering from what I thought was an ear infection. So much to my host mother’s delight, I went to the doctor for the first time in South Africa. First, I called the doctor to make an appointment, to which they told me they do not take appointments and I should just get in line. I was a little worried about how long this “line” would be, but then remember that I was not going to the free clinic, but one you needed to pay.

I went to the office where only about three people were waiting. Once the doctor got started things went pretty fast. I have never been in and out of an exam room so fast, HMO’s in America would be impressed. He looked in both my ears, my mouth, diagnosed me with some infection in my head and sent me to the back to get medication.

Not exactly like some of the stories I have heard about going to the doctor in Africa, but this is South Africa, I was in a town (albeit a very small one) and I was willing to pay to see a doctor.