My First Story

I’m told everyone who travels abroad has at least one diarrhea story; I officially have my first foreign diarrhea story.  That may have been a crude way to start out this post but I wanted to thank everyone who has kept me in their prayers and reassure everyone I am still alive and on the up and up as far as mending goes. 

Our student affairs manager at our base camp took me to a local clinic in Karatu, Tanzania which is about ten minutes from our base camp and is run by an American doctor.  I walked into the doctors office and the doctor, Dr. Frank, said “So you’ve been here five days.  Let me guess, do you have diarrhea, vomiting, stomach cramps, nausea, and a slight headache?” And what do you know, I was diagnosed!  Obviously Dr Frank sees a lot of this especially with tourists.  I was given some medicine and some oral rehydration salts to put in my water to help with dehydration. 

Once I got back to camp, I slept for seven hours.  I missed all of my classes, but it felt so great to get some sleep and I’m ready for bed again.  After waking up and taking a walk with one of my roommates, Kiley, and hanging out with some locals I felt better.  And at supper I ate for the first time in 24+ hours and so far its stayed in my body.  Other than being weak and tired, which I assume is from a little dehydration and lack of a lot of food, I feel a lot better.  I definitely attribute my recovery to all your prayers! Thank you so much!

A lot of small blessings and fun stories have arisen from this whole experience.  First of all, I was able to see the landscape around Karatu, which is absolutely beautiful.  Its near the Ngorongoro crater and has some phenomenal views.  Second, I got to experience using a hole in the ground for a bathroom, Ive never done that so weirdly enough it was kinda thrilling.  Thirdly, I was haggled by what they call a “Maasai Mama”, which is an elderly Maasai woman trying to sell goods.  I made the mistake of calling her beaded jewelry “nzuri sana” or beautiful and I think that made her think I wanted to buy some so she followed me around putting her beaded jewelry in my face.  If any of you know me, you know that I have a hard time saying “no” to jewelry, but I just had to keep repeating “hapana asante” which means “no thank you” and finally she walked off.  It was a neat experience and now I know how to better handle the Maasai Mamas.  Also, the students here have been really considerate, asking how Im doing and the sorts.  My roommates have been very nice as well, always making sure Im doing alright.  So there is my diarrhea story, not health-wise fun, but it definitely includes little blessings and funny stories.

Thanks again for all of your prayers! I really appreciate them!

P.S. Tomorrow we are taking our first field trip to Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania! Exciting! Look it up, but Ill share more about it after we come back.