Thursday, November 17, 2005

Free Ride for Fungi

It’s official. Just got back from the doctor’s office (and the dentist and the manicurist who groaned at my filthy feet) and I’m full of fungi. The beasties have probably been crawling around inside me for months. Who knows, maybe they were responsible for my hospital visits in August and September.

No big deal, just take three of these every day for a week, plus then in 3 weeks if I haven’t had flu-like symptoms then I can toss my malaria self-test kit, oh and in 6 weeks I have to take a day off to feel like crap because I’ll be munching bilharzia meds.

We don’t know that I have bilharzia. But Dr. Smyth at The Surgery felt that given the fact that I swallowed a gallon of the Nile two days ago in Jinja, it would be prudent to take preventative measures. She asked for a stool sample and slid a film canister across the desk to me. Kodak's film division isn't the only business that is screwed by the digital revolution.

Yes, I went rafting. Yes, we flipped. We didn’t even do it on purpose. We were sorely understaffed. It’s low season in Jinja and there were only four of us tourists hanging around. I couldn’t even book a trip with my old pal Marky’s company because they weren’t going to run one just for me. After a fine evening of shooting the breeze, he sent me over to Adrift.

Rafting was fun, but more importantly, my decision to get off the bus in Jinja spared me a night of Kampala roadblocks, riots, and no hotels as that was the same day the riots started.

I’ve been careful to stay out of the center, although local advice is just to avoid the High Court and government buildings. I did have to go to Colville Street to see the dentist. Dr. Geoffrey B. Bataringaya of Basil’s Dental Clinic did a fine job of cleaning my teeth and advised a wait-and-see approach to my sensitive spot. He also located freeloaders, and prescribed antiseptic mouthwash to delete them from my mouth.

Full of steak (it’s Uganda) and pills, I went back to the Fang Fang to color comics in celebration of my final night in Africa.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want to hear more about the rafting trip. How big is the Nile there? How bad the rapids? How long were you on the river (how long were you in the river?) Was it lovely? Ugly? What? C'mon, if you're going to tell us about the fungus amongus, the least you can do is deliver de river..

Marie Javins said...

Oh you know, the river is big. There were no hippos or crocs. The rapids were Class 5 and 3. It was pretty. Nice birdies. It's just that rafting is rafting and the truth is one Class 5 on the Nile isn't so different than on in Utah. You raft, you flip, you gasp for breath while being smashed with wave after wave and reminding yourself that the life vest won't let you drown. Pretty straightforward stuff.

Maybe I'll write about it in a day or two if I can think of something novel to say about it.