I arrived at the friend’s house a little late, and was welcomed into the kitchen where, on the counter tops was the most amazing and eclectic spread of food – sausage links, hotdog buns, pommes frites (French fries, even though they were invented by the Belgians – indisputable FACT!), potatoes chips, some drinks, and what looked to be a steel pot of cold rice mixed with some sort of minced meat. This last bit, the cold rice meat mix, was bland, congealed and a little gross, but out of sheer niceness, I wasn’t terribly opposed to consuming it. Because of Monica’s weeklong absence and my lack of even basic cooking knowledge (though some might disagree), I had survived all week off of bowls of cereal, burnt toast, old pasta and fizzy drinks, so I was happy to have something a little different. With the careful supervision of the host, I loaded up my plate with everything aforementioned, and even went back for seconds. We had good conversation in the living room, and because the city electricity went down half-way through my meal and the house generator was broken down, we chatted and joked by candle light. It was a good night, even though the popcorn and movie didn’t quite pan out.
My problems didn’t start until the next day, around mid-morning. There are multiple names for it, and I won’t disgust you with the details, but my favourite is ‘Montezuma’s revenge.’ You might have guessed it, the dreaded and constant companion of the mazungu (white person) abroad – diarrhoea. And for me, this was not just any bout of stomach gurgles and anxious darts to the bathroom. This was serious – or at least it was for me.
Early Saturday morning I walked to the office to download emails and to try to get some work done. In less than an hour, after my 4th visit to the restroom, I was walking like I had a limp in both legs, and then by hour 2 I might as well have been crawling around on the floor. I HAD to lie down, but I couldn’t walk home. I borrowed the car keys and drove myself home; practically leaning into the driver’s side door to avoid actually sitting on my backside. I can’t even begin to describe the stinging pain – though perhaps the sensation was a little like substituting a chilli pepper for a suppository. I sped home and threw myself into bed for 8 hours, lying on my stomach. I missed out on a friend’s going away party and basically watched rubbish American movies dubbed in French…without sub-titles. Blah.
As soon as I received word that Monica had arrived back in DRC (though she was still 11 hours away by car), I called her on her mobile phone and told her I thought I was dying of cholera. She is the public health promotion advisor for Tearfund after all. It turned out that she would have to spend the night in the bush, finishing the evening (as one does) by killing a snake in her bathroom with a jerry can full of water. Needless to say, it wasn’t an ideal situation – she had to spend a sleepless night in a sweltering bedroom fearful of the mama snake’s reprisals, whereas I spent the night nursing myself back to health.
Lets fast forward 2 weeks, shall we. At this point, though I’m still suffering from acidic stomach juice, but at least I can walk. I was once again invited for dinner at the same house, this time along with Monica, and we had an absolutely fantastic time. It started with some tea and crackers and would progress into a full-blown meal of, oh I forgot, because really the point of the gory details above is to describe what follows. While helping our host prepare tea, etc. in the kitchen, I saw him extract a steel pot from the refrigerator and place it on the countertop where the rest of the food was being prepared. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him take the lid off of the steel pot, and, gripping the spoon that had been left inside since the last serving; he proceeded to serve this cold rice and minced meat mix into the cat bowl on the ground. When our host noticed my horror, he looked up at me – our eyes met, and we both knew what had happened 2 weeks before.
So, though I would eventually be bedridden for 3 days with Malaria a little more than a month later – between the two incidents, I would imagine that I’ve got superhuman immunity. Some people believe that it’s good for children to grow up on a farm, playing with strange animals and shovelling horse dung – these are the building blocks of healthy children, so we’re told. So you’re reading this from a studio apartment in some big city or from the comfort of a suburban American neighbourhood, you may not have the luxury of wide-open spaces for your children to chase flocks of dingy pigeons, or the chance to get ring worm from the neighbourhood climbing tree. Just take it from me – send your kid to the Congo for a year, (or in the case of the homemade cat food, pay a visit to your local, well-meaning NGO), and if it doesn’t kill him/her, they’ll come back a little different. Perhaps not better or stronger, but they’ll certainly have some stories to share. To digress just a bit, WHO puts a pot of cat food right beside the rest of the meal at dinner time! I mean, come on!!! Thus, I would imagine that the moral of this story in particular, is this: Attention!!! Be careful of what you eat…
This is the actual cat food I ate...yum...
