Tropical Diseases, Free Hugs, and Trippy Dreams

Thursdays for us during training were especially interesting because of the PC/Malawi medical staff, who would roll into the College at Dedza with a big box of goodies and occasional power point picture shows full of pussy skin lesions and even the unfortunate STI-inflicted PCV member (kind of similar to what I might imagine pathology classes to be like in med school). Evelyn, the medical assistant/nurse/wonenepa and super-happy Malawian woman would give out gratuitous amounts of shots, each administered with a hug right before lunch (at the height of hypoglycemia por moi!). Anything you can think of needing for a country with poor infrastructure, we had it: rabies, typhoid, yellow fever, hepatitis, etc.

But the medical folks also did a great job preparing us mentally to prevent almost any of the problems that could occur here, and they did it in the best way: instilling fear by horrendous pictures and endless anecdotes combined with the unique awkward humor of dr erfan's dry quips. So even though I *probably* won't actually contract AIDS, now I know all about the life cycle so I can help diagnose village people around me. Statistics among volunteers are interesting too; the docs seemed kind of embarrassed about how many medical separations have occurred due to pregnancy, but STIs are pretty frequent among volunteers (and other STIs are a huge risk factor for AIDS so watch out!) Another big thing here is Malaria; basically, take your meds and it doesn't matter if you're a dumbass about using your mosquito net (but you should use it anyway). Just watch out for freaky Lariam-dreams.

We just kind of touched on fitness (women should wear long pants; sounds like a sweat fest to me) and nutrition (don't eat just rice, for god's sake .. shell out some cash and hire a worker!) but mental health apparently merited lots of poster paper and sessions with seasoned PCV's brought in for extra oomph. There's a PC organization called Vols Supporting Vols that makes house calls for the lonely, requiring only a text message, but another alternative is just leaving site to "restock"or just hang out with friends in your region.