Malaria, adverse drug reactions, and witches

Last Tuesday (that is, 8 days ago, Tuesday 5th) I took my mefloquine shortly before going to bed. In the middle of the night I woke up feeling rather ill. This leads me to think that my previous 'food poisoning', which occurred on a Tuesday morning less than an hour after taking my mefloquine, was actually a reaction to the drug. This theory has been further confirmed by my reaction to the mefloquine last night, which was identical to the previous week.

On Wednedsay (the 6th) we went to Bolga as a group. We found a hotel to stay in (GHc 5/person/night, staying in double rooms). We stayed there until Friday. During this time we did a number of quite interesting things.

We went to a place called Paga, near the border with Burkina Faso. At Paga there is a pool with crocodiles in it, which you can approach with impunity. I can't post photos of me with a crocodile, because I don't have my pictures with me at the moment, but I shall try to upload some soon. There is also an 'ancient village' (the guy extracting money from tourists claims the buildings and the paintings on them are 500 years old, but the metal pipe built into one of them proclaims that they were, in fact, made last week by a man in Birmingham).

On Thursday we went to see an NGO called Afrikids. You can look it up on the Internet for more information about it. We went to their office in the morning, but before going to see their projects I was taken ill, and Dan and Olivia went with me to the Afrikids medical centre, where I was diagnosed with malaria, of the Plasmodium falciparum variety. I was given a course of drugs to take, which I finished on Saturday. After resting in the hotel, I rejoined the group in time to see Mama Laadi's foster home.

On Friday, Sasha, Dan and Joel went to Burkina Faso, while the rest of us headed back to Tamale via a witch village. We never actually reached the witches, due to the poor quality of the road, and the fear that it would rain, leaving us stuck in the middle of nowhere in Ghana over Shabbat.

On Monday (11th) I spent more or less the whole day in the hospital with Mr Sulley, who has hypertension. This did mean that I met another English doctor: a woman this time, named Emma, who went to Cambridge to do the graduate entry medical course.

That brings us to today, Wednesday 13th. We are having a party at the house this evening, for a lot of the people we work with. I will let you know at some point how that goes. My name is Sam Borin, and you've just been filled in.

;)