There are a couple of health-related things that I have noticed seem to be foreign to Rwandans I meet. I don’t mean this in the sense that these people are unhygienic or don’t wash their hands enough—many probably are, but much more out of necessity than choice. There are just certain conditions that are commonplace for me as an American but are evidently not issues here.
The first is acne. I have some, and it comes and goes—mostly going, with medication, but living in a sweaty and dusty environment it occasionally comes back. At first, my hosts thought it was the sun; that is not unreasonable, really, and it is even possible that the more direct sun did contribute. (I am not very informed about the causes of acne, and frankly I am content to stay that way.) Since, the most common suspicion people have had is that my mosquito-net has a hole in it and I am being bitten during the night. It is kind of annoying to not be able to describe what the problem actually is: there is no Kinyarwanda word for it, and I also do not really understand it enough to describe it, even in English, as anything more than “a thing that happens to white teenagers.”
The other big one is allergies. I know that allergies are, at least in a large part, a result of being raised in an overly sanitized environment, and in that sense I should expect that they would not be very prevalent here. Once again, though, it is annoying to not really be able to explain to people why I am sneezing. (Something here, probably dust, has frequently been setting off my allergies when I am indoors.) Many times, I have been asked whether I have a cold, and responded only “no, maybe it’s the dust…” I have tried saying allergie with a French flourish, but that does not help much either.
Now, at long last, I actually do have a cold. It was really only a matter of time: I am living in a densely populated area and making it my business to go out and talk to lots of people, so lots of handshaking. And yes, I have not been washing my hands as much as perhaps I should, and I have a feeling many of the hands I am shaking have not either. (On both ends, this is at least partially because of intermittently available sanitation.)
It is not a terrible affliction, though I am going through tissues really fast. I took two naps today and, to briefly stop pretending it is still Sunday, slept about ten hours the following night. It is just a little bit bothersome to know that my time here is so valuable and I actually have things I want to do, but for the sake of recovering quickly I should just stay inside.
It is also a near-certainty that I will get someone else sick in the house, and then someone else, and it would be pretty lucky (I think) if anyone came out without a cold. I guess I can take some comfort in knowing that it is, after all, just a cold.
No comments:
Post a Comment