That Time I Got Malaria

That Time I Got Malaria…

It’s a good conversation piece. When there is a lull in the conversation, I can always offer a non sequiter about that time I got malaria in Guinea. "Really?!" people exclaim with some degree of shock. Really. Most people do not realize that living with malaria is an everyday part of life for many people living in the global south. For many Westerners, the word malaria harkens images straight from Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It sounds almost exotic, in a very 19th century kind of way.

I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guinea from 2002-2004. My chances of getting malaria were supposed to be slim, that is if I did what the Peace Corps medical officers told me to do and religiously took Mefloquine, an anti-malarial that has been banned in many European countries due to insufficient knowledge of the long-term side effects of taking the drug for pronlonged periods. It seemed simple. Mosquitos carry a parasite that, once injected into your bloodstream, gives you the chills, splitting headaches, and other nasty symptoms. Take the drug and somehow you are immune. That is how modern medicine works for most of us; mysterious, but often effective.

So I took the pill once a week. And it worked, for a while. Then the violent nightmares began. I spent the wee hours of the night chopping off people's heads, confronting King cobras, and plotting attacks. I can never be sure if the violent nightmares were linked to changes in my daytime mood, but around the same time I became edgy and temperamental.

It's hard to know what was causing what. Living abroad and prolonged exposure to stress--like having to communicate with third-grade French skills because no one around in a 100-mile radius speaks my language--can do some funny things. But the little research I had done on Meflaquin before I left admitted that violent nightmares were one of the many possible side effects of this potent drug.

I had a year and 9 months to go. I decided to "discontinue" the Meflaquin. After a week or so, my dreams returned to the benign sort, packed with symbolism and morphing people, but no violence.

…

The morning that I left with my friend Kosta for a long bike ride down to the local river, my host mother and father (a next door family who took me under their wings) warned me that there were evil spirits down by the river. I laughed lightheartedly and reassured them my friend Kosta was with me. Together we could tackle any evil spirits.

A bike ride in Guinea is a long affair on narrow dirt paths that convince you they are taking you to another country. We returned to my small cement home at dusk that evening. Kosta and I parted ways and I ate around a bowl of rice with my family that night. I asked them to tell me more about the river spirits. Apparently they look something like E.T., have glowing eyes, and swim in the river.

Weeks later I came down with a fever. I felt fine during the day. But in the evening I became hot and developed a pounding headache. The symptoms mysteriously disappeared in the morning. But they came back with a vengeance in the evening. I lay on my straw mattress clutching my head between my hands. My whole body was sore. Ibuprofen wasn’t putting a dent in the pain.

I suspected I had malaria and looked up the symptoms in the “how to diagnosis” booklet the medical staff included in the hard plastic briefcase of save-yourself-if-you-can drugs. The evenings became more difficult, and the days too. The pain was not subsiding, no matter what time of day it was.

After 5 days of this, I was now sure I had malaria.

My host parents had also figured out what was going on. I had been infected by the spirits down by the river.

I didn’t know how to explain the origins of malaria, as I understood them (and in rudimentary French) to my family. I tried talking about mosquitos. My parents listened politely and nodded. But I could tell they were not convinced. I took the drugs in my plastic briefcase. But they seemed to be working slowly. My mom became increasingly worried. One evening, as I cried out in pain from the body aches and splitting headache, she took action.

The next day her mother, an old woman with skin like leather, arrived at my bedside. She wrapped a piece of fabric tightly around my head, which, to my amazement, decreased the pain measurably. I was a bit delirious, but I remember some sort of sweet smelling incense wafting through the air and chanting at my bedside.

The next morning my fever broke. I eventually regained strength in my body.

I figured the malaria drugs took some time to kick in. My family took my recovery as a sign that their medicine had worked.

Every now and then I revisit the idea of who was right. Being a scientist, it is hard to allow myself to fully consider the possibility that is was anything but the drugs that returned me to good health.

I am not convinced that the smoke and chanting worked. But it felt so reassuring at the time, when I was afraid, contemplating in my delirium if this would be the place where I met my maker. And who is that maker? I feel like my host parents had more answers about this than me.