When I first arrived in Australia I weighed in at only 125 pounds. I was very thin but very fit. I got a lot of exercise because I was very active. Every chance I got I went swimming or skin diving. I played football, rugby and cricket but could not get into the pace or lack there of for cricket. I walked a lot and ran for exercise. I have always loved just running. Some of my friends and I had regular wrestling matches which I still loved to do. I also got lots of sexercise.
I wanted to gain weight so I started to eat. Breakfast was always huge. Steak and eggs with potatoes and toast with promite on it was a typical daily meal. I threw in some bacon or sausages sometimes along with french toast or four egg omelets with the kitchen sink thrown in them. For lunch I ate sandwiches stacked up with lots of meats and cheeses from a nearby deli most days or Chinese food. I baked bread often, usually whole wheat using Adelle Davis's recipe. Dinner was my favorite meal of the day. I cooked Mexican food like chili and burritos or some other taco or enchilada dish a couple times a week but we went out for dinner more often then we ate in. I also snacked relentlessly. I drank a lot of beer and hard cider too. My caloric intake must have been close to 8000 a day and it still took me a year to get my weight up to a trim 140 pounds. After almost two years of eating like this I approached 160 pounds and I slowed down my eating. I was still very thin and fit at 160 pounds.
Men seem to lose weight when they travel and women seem to gain weight. I don't know why that is but it sure seems to be the case from everybody I knew that did a lot of traveling. I tried to maintain my weight as I traveled but after my fifty pound drop in weight when I got so sick from malaria in Ethiopia it was very tough for me to just maintain to say nothing about gaining weight. I did not get back up to the weight I was before I got sick in Ethiopia until over six years later. Today I am a tad overweight but only about 10 pounds. Compared to most Americans I am down right skinny.
I did have a malaria relapse when I was living in Sydney. I just suddenly got a very high fever and started to shake and sweat with diarrhea to make sure I really felt like crap. I went to the hospital and they told me I had malaria. I did not know that malaria stays in your system for around five years and can relapse anytime your general health gets weak. They gave me chloroquine or some other antimalaria drug and I recovered in a few days. I was always careful to stay healthy after that attack.
After we sold the bikini business we went back up to Sydney for a short while. I had to finish my divorce with Kirsten before I left. That went without a hitch. The only problem was that Kirsten turned against me big time as we were splitting up. I did not understand her animosity. I wanted to be friends with her and she just wanted to hate me for some reason. When she burned up all my pictures of our travels I was extremely depressed by her behavior. I just don't get why people can't split up and still be friends. I know the system forces animosity the way it is so cold but people should be able to get over that. I ended up losing contact with her over the years which still disappoints me. I would still like to find her again and see if we could be friends again. We were best friends for so long I still miss her.
Finally all the loose ends were cleared up, like a visa to the U.S. for Sue, and we bought tickets from Sydney to San Francisco via New Zealand. We were going to stop off in New Zealand and see Sue's family and travel around the country for a bit before flying on to the States.
Showing posts with label Malaria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malaria. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Kumasi Ghana
We kept driving South into Ghana. We started to find real road not long after we entered the country after leaving the game park in the Northern corner of the country. Ghana was different than Upper Volta, Mali and Senegal were. The people seemed to be more happy in their daily lives and they all seemed to have a purpose or a job to do all the time. They were very busy all the time. The housing also changed into more of a Western style of building except made out of adobe with thatched roofs and more and more tin roofs were starting to show up also. We found plenty of fuel stations and food stops along the way. We spent the night sleeping under the stars along the side of the road when it got dark. I loved watching all the people carrying things on their heads. There were frequently women and girls walking along the road with large urns of water on their heads or large stacks of firewood and things. The clothing was also much more colorful here with lots of bold prints. Once we left the far north everyone was fully dressed all the time. The population quickly increased as we went South and the rainfall increased. Large fields of crops appeared and once in a while we saw a modern tractor in a field or on the road.
We finally arrived at Kumasi, a large densely populated city with good infrastructure. We headed straight to the University and my driver visited his fellow professors there. We had a great meal and sat around drinking until late in the night before we were put up in a nice modern apartment right on campus.
I was talking to the professors all night about the philosophy of education and what the goals of a country's education should be. Should it supply theoretically trained workers or people ready to step right into a specific job category? We discussed the merits of both styles. Ghana was in the middle of an internal revolt over this topic. The early English school masters had been telling the students to come to school to get a good education so that they did not have to struggle on subsistence farms for their entire lives. Families had worked hard to put their kids through school instead of teaching them how to survive on a subsistence farm. The dream of getting a well paying job at the end of the struggle is what drove them to sacrifice so much to get the education. The problem now was that thousands of students were graduating from the educational system and expecting to walk into the high paying careers that they had gone to school so long for but there was one big flaw in the dream--There were no high paying jobs available to the vast majority of these students. They had been taught that farming was a low esteem living so they did not want to go back and work on the family farm. They ended up in the overcrowded cities with nothing to do but turn to crime for a living. So now large gangs of men in their twenties were roaming the streets with guns and sometimes rioting for jobs. It was a very sad situation. The professors asked me to teach at the University. I had practical experience as an electronic technician and they wanted me to teach a course at the University using a hands on approach instead of the purely theoretical approach they currently used. They offered me a very good deal with cash deposited directly into a foreign bank account and a full room and board with a living allowance for my time in Ghana. I thought long and hard but did not take the job. I did spend a few days talking to large groups of students during assembly at the University. I spoke about the same things I had spoken about in all the other schools, music, Western culture, Western politics, racism and all the violence going on in the U.S. at the time over the Viet Nam war and race. I enjoyed the sessions. They went for most of the day for a few days in a row. I ended up staying at the University for a couple of weeks working during the day and drinking at night with the students and professors. It was very satisfying.
I had to take the job or leave and I left. I hitch hiked South to Accra the capital. There was a lot of violence going on in the streets and I did not like the vibe so I got out of there quickly. Accra was a large city trying to become Westernized but having lots of troubles doing it. While I was there young men with machine guns went on a rampage because they had no jobs or means of support. There was talk of a civil war brewing. I did not want to be caught up in a civil war.
I met some travelers and we hitched West along the coast and found a large abandoned Portuguese fort right on the beach. We explored it and found shackles about a foot of the ground and also about five or six feet of the ground on the walls of lots of small dark dank rooms. This was an old slaving center and slaves and prisoners were shackled up to these. It was an strange feeling seeing them abandoned like this and imagining when this was an active fort a few hundred years earlier. We ended up moving into the fort and living in it for quite a long time.
The fort was right on the beach. We set up a camp inside where I put up my tent and lived in it. There were almost twenty of us living there at one point. We swam during the day and hung out on the beach. We played cards. We had little orgies in the prison cells. We watched the fishermen coming and going working on the beach. They sold us fresh fish everyday that we cooked over an open fire. We supplemented that with lots of fresh fruit like papayas, mangoes, bananas and pineapple. There were lots of other fruits that I did not even know the names of. We had a good life going. At night we had a fire and some of the guys played guitar and sang. We had some weed to smoke here and there but mostly we just drank a lot of beer. I was having a great time. Then it all fell apart.
An English guy caught Malaria and decided that the drugs for Malaria were a corporate fraud and that he could beat the disease just like all the local people here had for centuries with no drugs. Well his speech sounded good but it was based on flawed assumptions on his part. First of all the local people did suffer and die by the millions without drugs. Sure some survived but that was due to a genetic modification called sickle cell anemia. The reality was that people died every day because of Malaria here in Ghana and around the world in the Malaria belt. This guy went on a pineapple diet to beat the Malaria. He quickly developed a very high fever and got delusional from the fever, shivers, diarrhea and dehydration from his stupid attempt to beat the system. He ended up dying. We tried to take him in for medical help but he refused to go and then he died quickly during the night. His death created a stir in the community. We got word that the police were going to round us up and arrest us for contributing to his death. I took the rumor seriously and I split right away. I quickly hitched a ride to the Ivory Coast just a few miles West.
I only stayed in Ivory Coast for a few days. I did not like it much. There was too much crime around me and the people were even closer to a revolution than the people in Ghana. I turned around and started to head East. I did stop off near the fort on the way past it and I found out that the police had indeed raided our encampment and retaken the fort themselves. I never found out what happened to my friends and I was afraid to ask for fear that I would go to jail. I never mentioned that I had anything to do with it and instead I just kept right on going East through Accra and on to the next country, Togo.
We finally arrived at Kumasi, a large densely populated city with good infrastructure. We headed straight to the University and my driver visited his fellow professors there. We had a great meal and sat around drinking until late in the night before we were put up in a nice modern apartment right on campus.
I was talking to the professors all night about the philosophy of education and what the goals of a country's education should be. Should it supply theoretically trained workers or people ready to step right into a specific job category? We discussed the merits of both styles. Ghana was in the middle of an internal revolt over this topic. The early English school masters had been telling the students to come to school to get a good education so that they did not have to struggle on subsistence farms for their entire lives. Families had worked hard to put their kids through school instead of teaching them how to survive on a subsistence farm. The dream of getting a well paying job at the end of the struggle is what drove them to sacrifice so much to get the education. The problem now was that thousands of students were graduating from the educational system and expecting to walk into the high paying careers that they had gone to school so long for but there was one big flaw in the dream--There were no high paying jobs available to the vast majority of these students. They had been taught that farming was a low esteem living so they did not want to go back and work on the family farm. They ended up in the overcrowded cities with nothing to do but turn to crime for a living. So now large gangs of men in their twenties were roaming the streets with guns and sometimes rioting for jobs. It was a very sad situation. The professors asked me to teach at the University. I had practical experience as an electronic technician and they wanted me to teach a course at the University using a hands on approach instead of the purely theoretical approach they currently used. They offered me a very good deal with cash deposited directly into a foreign bank account and a full room and board with a living allowance for my time in Ghana. I thought long and hard but did not take the job. I did spend a few days talking to large groups of students during assembly at the University. I spoke about the same things I had spoken about in all the other schools, music, Western culture, Western politics, racism and all the violence going on in the U.S. at the time over the Viet Nam war and race. I enjoyed the sessions. They went for most of the day for a few days in a row. I ended up staying at the University for a couple of weeks working during the day and drinking at night with the students and professors. It was very satisfying.
I had to take the job or leave and I left. I hitch hiked South to Accra the capital. There was a lot of violence going on in the streets and I did not like the vibe so I got out of there quickly. Accra was a large city trying to become Westernized but having lots of troubles doing it. While I was there young men with machine guns went on a rampage because they had no jobs or means of support. There was talk of a civil war brewing. I did not want to be caught up in a civil war.
I met some travelers and we hitched West along the coast and found a large abandoned Portuguese fort right on the beach. We explored it and found shackles about a foot of the ground and also about five or six feet of the ground on the walls of lots of small dark dank rooms. This was an old slaving center and slaves and prisoners were shackled up to these. It was an strange feeling seeing them abandoned like this and imagining when this was an active fort a few hundred years earlier. We ended up moving into the fort and living in it for quite a long time.
The fort was right on the beach. We set up a camp inside where I put up my tent and lived in it. There were almost twenty of us living there at one point. We swam during the day and hung out on the beach. We played cards. We had little orgies in the prison cells. We watched the fishermen coming and going working on the beach. They sold us fresh fish everyday that we cooked over an open fire. We supplemented that with lots of fresh fruit like papayas, mangoes, bananas and pineapple. There were lots of other fruits that I did not even know the names of. We had a good life going. At night we had a fire and some of the guys played guitar and sang. We had some weed to smoke here and there but mostly we just drank a lot of beer. I was having a great time. Then it all fell apart.
An English guy caught Malaria and decided that the drugs for Malaria were a corporate fraud and that he could beat the disease just like all the local people here had for centuries with no drugs. Well his speech sounded good but it was based on flawed assumptions on his part. First of all the local people did suffer and die by the millions without drugs. Sure some survived but that was due to a genetic modification called sickle cell anemia. The reality was that people died every day because of Malaria here in Ghana and around the world in the Malaria belt. This guy went on a pineapple diet to beat the Malaria. He quickly developed a very high fever and got delusional from the fever, shivers, diarrhea and dehydration from his stupid attempt to beat the system. He ended up dying. We tried to take him in for medical help but he refused to go and then he died quickly during the night. His death created a stir in the community. We got word that the police were going to round us up and arrest us for contributing to his death. I took the rumor seriously and I split right away. I quickly hitched a ride to the Ivory Coast just a few miles West.
I only stayed in Ivory Coast for a few days. I did not like it much. There was too much crime around me and the people were even closer to a revolution than the people in Ghana. I turned around and started to head East. I did stop off near the fort on the way past it and I found out that the police had indeed raided our encampment and retaken the fort themselves. I never found out what happened to my friends and I was afraid to ask for fear that I would go to jail. I never mentioned that I had anything to do with it and instead I just kept right on going East through Accra and on to the next country, Togo.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Rift Valley Ethiopia
It didn't take long for the scenery to change once we left Lake Tana going north. The road skirted the valley up on the western ridge. It was a very good road. The views were just out of this world gorgeous. It was kind of like the Grand Canyon on steroids. As we went up and down in various places the vegetation changed. Lower down it was more arid until the bottom of the valley was a desert and higher up where it was cooler and there was more rainfall it was greener. The valley was layered with multi colored bands of rock. It felt like we were back in the age of the dinosaurs sometimes from the strange plants and layers of rocks. I loved it all.
We were picked up at Lake Tana by a soap salesman driving a Mercedes sedan. He was driving up to Asmara all the way up in the northern war zone. We figured we had a nice comfortable ride all the way to our destination. We were having pleasant conversation with our friendly driver for a few hours when we passed a farmer with his animals crossing the road. We stopped and let them pass without a problem. Our driver picked up speed again and then out of nowhere a donkey ran out in front of the car and we slammed into it before we could stop. The donkey was seriously injured but ran away off the road. There was nothing we could do to help it by chasing him. The car was seriously damaged also. The entire front end was smashed in, the hood was popped open and crinkled up and the windshield was all cracked. None of us inside the car were hurt at all. The engine was still running. We looked around and there were no people nearby and there was nothing for us to do so we tied the hood down to the bumper and took off. The car still ran just fine but it would need a lot of body work to look good again.
We continued down the road talking and recovering from the accident. Then about two hours later we noticed a military roadblock up ahead of us. We didn't think it was a danger to us because we weren't involved in the war. As we pulled up to the roadblock however, the men all pointed their rifles at us and started shouting at the driver. We slowly got out of the car with our hands in the air and they came up and put handcuffs on the driver. They ignored Kirsten and myself. They were not military. They were the local police. They were on the lookout for the hit and run driver that killed the donkey back up the road where we came from. Of course with the damaged car we couldn't exactly hide the fact that we were the ones that hit the donkey. Our driver readily admitted the fact but pointed out that there were no people around to report it to and the donkey ran away so what was he to do? Of course he was going to report it at the first town we came to but we hadn't come to a town yet. The driver and the police started to negotiate. It took a couple of hours since they started at $2000 for a combination fine and restitution for the farmer's donkey but in the end our driver had to fork over $400 in cash for the police to let us continue on. They also ticketed the car and told the driver that he had to stop in the next town and get the car repaired. So we lost our ride.
When we got to the next little town our driver checked into a hotel and made arrangements to get his car fixed. We spent the night there and the next morning we started to hitch hike north again.
This time we got a ride from a truck. Not in the cab, but rather riding up on top of the load in the back. It was actually very comfortable to ride like that. We covered up from the sun so we wouldn't get sunburned and settled in to watch the views roll by one spectacular one after another. We did the wild thing a couple of times up there too which was kind of fun. To kill time I told Kirsten the story of the Wizard of Oz. She had never seen it or read the story so I started at the beginning and in very minute detail I told the entire story. Kirsten was totally engrossed in the story and loved having me tell her the whole thing. We used it to work on improving her already excellent English skills.
The truck pulled over for the night and we slept on top under the stars. It was very nice weather and clear skies. We watched shooting stars and tried to see how many constellations we could remember and find. We eventually got a good nights sleep.
The next morning we took off early. We stopped at a cafe and had some breakfast and coffee. We tried some camel milk ginger tea that was delicious. The camel milk was way sweeter than cows milk is. Then we got back on the road. About an hour after we stopped I started to get sick. It started out with a headache and some chills. Then I started to get an upset stomach. then I started to sweat. Then I started to shake and I got explosive diarrhea. We had to get off the truck. The driver was very concerned about me. I was getting worse and worse by the minute. By one in the afternoon I was totally out of it. I was pissing, shitting, puking, sweating and shaking all at the same time. I was no longer lucid and could not talk or stand up anymore. Everybody around me thought I was going to die soon.
It was already dark by now and I was fading quickly. Then out of nowhere about a dozen Ethiopian men showed up with two long poles and picked me up and carried me with the two long poles. I was naked and still losing fluids out of every orifice of my body. These men carried me all night over the rough terrain. We came to a small village early the next morning and they stood me up in the doorway of a building. I was not functional but I leaned against the door without falling down right away. The men ran into the building and told the young Swiss doctor that was working at this UNICEF maternity clinic that she had to come out right away and help the white man in the doorway. Well this young little five foot tall doctor came out of the back room yelling that the white man in the door way would have to sit down and wait his turn because there were twenty two other patients in front of him. By the time she finished her little rave at me she was standing right in front of me glaring to add proper emphasis to her lecture. I looked down at her and puked right in her face then I started to fall forward without any effort on my part to catch my fall. I have to give the woman credit because she immediately realized that I was only minutes away from dying and that if I had to wait through twenty two patients I would most likely be dead. The fact that I puked right in her face did not seem to phase her one bit. She put me down carefully on the floor then she turned around and screamed some orders to her nurse and then she turned around and threw open her medicine cabinet and pulled out a gigantic siringe and put about ten CCs of amphetamines in it and gave me a shot right in my gut. I sat up immediately and started to talk. She pushed me down and made me stay on the floor. She put an IV in my arm and started a bag of fluid. Then she gave me some pills to take for malaria and some more injections of vitamins and gamma globulin. She gave me a second bag of fluid with sugar in it and then told me to just stay right there on the floor until she told me to move. I did as I was told.
\
She moved me to a cot and ended up giving me four bags of fluids and several more shots including some antibiotics. She told me that I had come down with malaria and then every other illness that I was exposed to once my body was weakened by the malaria. I spent the entire day at the clinic. Kirsten showed up a couple of hours after I arrived. We found a bed in a nearby house and spent a couple of days recovering. I could not walk unassisted for almost a week. I lost over forty pounds almost all of it the first day. I was extremely weak. We ate our injera and wat every meal once I could hold down food again because there was nothing else to eat. The doctor brought me a couple of eggs and told me to eat them one each morning. I told her thank you and asked her how much I owed her for her services. She said UNICEF paid for everything and that I should just donate to UNICEF when I got the chance. She was very sweet. I never saw the men that carried me so far again so I never got a chance to tell them thank you. I asked the local people to make sure they tell the men just how thankful I was to them for saving my life. A few days later we got out on the road again to hitch hike the rest of the way to Asmara.
We were picked up at Lake Tana by a soap salesman driving a Mercedes sedan. He was driving up to Asmara all the way up in the northern war zone. We figured we had a nice comfortable ride all the way to our destination. We were having pleasant conversation with our friendly driver for a few hours when we passed a farmer with his animals crossing the road. We stopped and let them pass without a problem. Our driver picked up speed again and then out of nowhere a donkey ran out in front of the car and we slammed into it before we could stop. The donkey was seriously injured but ran away off the road. There was nothing we could do to help it by chasing him. The car was seriously damaged also. The entire front end was smashed in, the hood was popped open and crinkled up and the windshield was all cracked. None of us inside the car were hurt at all. The engine was still running. We looked around and there were no people nearby and there was nothing for us to do so we tied the hood down to the bumper and took off. The car still ran just fine but it would need a lot of body work to look good again.
We continued down the road talking and recovering from the accident. Then about two hours later we noticed a military roadblock up ahead of us. We didn't think it was a danger to us because we weren't involved in the war. As we pulled up to the roadblock however, the men all pointed their rifles at us and started shouting at the driver. We slowly got out of the car with our hands in the air and they came up and put handcuffs on the driver. They ignored Kirsten and myself. They were not military. They were the local police. They were on the lookout for the hit and run driver that killed the donkey back up the road where we came from. Of course with the damaged car we couldn't exactly hide the fact that we were the ones that hit the donkey. Our driver readily admitted the fact but pointed out that there were no people around to report it to and the donkey ran away so what was he to do? Of course he was going to report it at the first town we came to but we hadn't come to a town yet. The driver and the police started to negotiate. It took a couple of hours since they started at $2000 for a combination fine and restitution for the farmer's donkey but in the end our driver had to fork over $400 in cash for the police to let us continue on. They also ticketed the car and told the driver that he had to stop in the next town and get the car repaired. So we lost our ride.
When we got to the next little town our driver checked into a hotel and made arrangements to get his car fixed. We spent the night there and the next morning we started to hitch hike north again.
This time we got a ride from a truck. Not in the cab, but rather riding up on top of the load in the back. It was actually very comfortable to ride like that. We covered up from the sun so we wouldn't get sunburned and settled in to watch the views roll by one spectacular one after another. We did the wild thing a couple of times up there too which was kind of fun. To kill time I told Kirsten the story of the Wizard of Oz. She had never seen it or read the story so I started at the beginning and in very minute detail I told the entire story. Kirsten was totally engrossed in the story and loved having me tell her the whole thing. We used it to work on improving her already excellent English skills.
The truck pulled over for the night and we slept on top under the stars. It was very nice weather and clear skies. We watched shooting stars and tried to see how many constellations we could remember and find. We eventually got a good nights sleep.
The next morning we took off early. We stopped at a cafe and had some breakfast and coffee. We tried some camel milk ginger tea that was delicious. The camel milk was way sweeter than cows milk is. Then we got back on the road. About an hour after we stopped I started to get sick. It started out with a headache and some chills. Then I started to get an upset stomach. then I started to sweat. Then I started to shake and I got explosive diarrhea. We had to get off the truck. The driver was very concerned about me. I was getting worse and worse by the minute. By one in the afternoon I was totally out of it. I was pissing, shitting, puking, sweating and shaking all at the same time. I was no longer lucid and could not talk or stand up anymore. Everybody around me thought I was going to die soon.
It was already dark by now and I was fading quickly. Then out of nowhere about a dozen Ethiopian men showed up with two long poles and picked me up and carried me with the two long poles. I was naked and still losing fluids out of every orifice of my body. These men carried me all night over the rough terrain. We came to a small village early the next morning and they stood me up in the doorway of a building. I was not functional but I leaned against the door without falling down right away. The men ran into the building and told the young Swiss doctor that was working at this UNICEF maternity clinic that she had to come out right away and help the white man in the doorway. Well this young little five foot tall doctor came out of the back room yelling that the white man in the door way would have to sit down and wait his turn because there were twenty two other patients in front of him. By the time she finished her little rave at me she was standing right in front of me glaring to add proper emphasis to her lecture. I looked down at her and puked right in her face then I started to fall forward without any effort on my part to catch my fall. I have to give the woman credit because she immediately realized that I was only minutes away from dying and that if I had to wait through twenty two patients I would most likely be dead. The fact that I puked right in her face did not seem to phase her one bit. She put me down carefully on the floor then she turned around and screamed some orders to her nurse and then she turned around and threw open her medicine cabinet and pulled out a gigantic siringe and put about ten CCs of amphetamines in it and gave me a shot right in my gut. I sat up immediately and started to talk. She pushed me down and made me stay on the floor. She put an IV in my arm and started a bag of fluid. Then she gave me some pills to take for malaria and some more injections of vitamins and gamma globulin. She gave me a second bag of fluid with sugar in it and then told me to just stay right there on the floor until she told me to move. I did as I was told.
\
She moved me to a cot and ended up giving me four bags of fluids and several more shots including some antibiotics. She told me that I had come down with malaria and then every other illness that I was exposed to once my body was weakened by the malaria. I spent the entire day at the clinic. Kirsten showed up a couple of hours after I arrived. We found a bed in a nearby house and spent a couple of days recovering. I could not walk unassisted for almost a week. I lost over forty pounds almost all of it the first day. I was extremely weak. We ate our injera and wat every meal once I could hold down food again because there was nothing else to eat. The doctor brought me a couple of eggs and told me to eat them one each morning. I told her thank you and asked her how much I owed her for her services. She said UNICEF paid for everything and that I should just donate to UNICEF when I got the chance. She was very sweet. I never saw the men that carried me so far again so I never got a chance to tell them thank you. I asked the local people to make sure they tell the men just how thankful I was to them for saving my life. A few days later we got out on the road again to hitch hike the rest of the way to Asmara.
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