October 12, Rift Valley Pension, Arba Minch, 9:45pm:
This morning, I woke up with Guinea Worm. Or so I thought. I woke up just before sunrise thinking, why is it so damn hot in this room?? I’m burning alive! Sweat pouring off my forehead. Felt like a horrible sunburn at first, but I looked in the mirror and pinched myself. No sunburn. No itchiness. Just a horrible searing heat, stinging and prickly, all over my face and spreading to my hands and elbows. What the hell’s wrong with me? Tried to wash my face, but as soon as I did, the stinging turned into a thousand fierce stabbing pains, like acupuncture gone horribly awry. Allergy? I took two benadryl and laid back down. Didn’t feel like an allergy…
Shimeles called me that it was time for breakfast, but I didn’t want to go out, not into the sun, not when I was already on fire like this. Shit, what is it?? I thumbed through my guide to African illnesses: all the possible culprits sounded horrible. The thought of trying to get health care in Arba Minch sounded even worse: dirty needles, mis-prescribed medications, skin infections… Shit! What was I going to do? I got a hold of myself and assured myself that it would pass with a little time. Just endure it for a while, it can’t go on like this…
No indeed. It proceeded to get worse. We drove to the University to pick up the data from the permanent station, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. A friendly conversation with the guards at the meteorological observatory was excruciating… I sat squirming, pouring sweat, feeling like my skin was about to peel off my face in black chunks. Had to get back to the shower, and scrub it over and over with soap, get whatever it was off. I thought about it and decided the mosquito netting I used last night had probably been treated with some sort of chemical, and my skin was reacting to everything that had been above the covers and in contact with the net. Hoping that was it. What does Schistomiasis feel like? The travel book had about a hundred entries for various slithering parasites that could crawl into your skin and proceed to do indescribable, uncurable things to your insides, and of course a burning rash was symptomatic of every one. Took the shower and scrubbed repeatedly with soap, which felt great until I stepped out from under the water. Then the real burning started. It exploded, from my fingers up to my shoulders, and my thighs, and my face all the way back to my ears now, and I writhed on my bed, trying to do anything, think of anything, to make the burning go away. It felt like my skin should have been swollen and red, maybe oozing or cracking, but when I looked in the mirror, it was white and cool and unmarked by any sign of discomfort. I inspected for tiny mites, but saw nothing. No bites, no swelling, no redness. When I touched it hard, it didn’t hurt at all. The tse-tse flies? Mustard Gas? I had no idea, but was definitely getting scared now. Calm, be calm…
Went out to lunch with Shimeles. It felt like there was an invisible layer of acid on my skin, slowing eating through every one of my nerve ends. And then, quite rapidly, my face started burning less, and a bit later, my arms too. Slackening, slackening…
Down to a little prickliness, like wearing course wool, a persistent sensation. Phew. I think I might live. What the hell was it?

At lunch, I received much praise about my ability to eat with the injera. Starting feeling like a damn fine Ethiopian, not so farenj any more. Walking to the car, thinking about this: blending in, fitting in, savvy to the local ways, not at all like those other clueless farenj who blundered about slackjawed in their rented Land Cruisers with rented drivers and rented guides… and I proceeded to walk face-first into the metal corner of an enormous billboard, reeling backward and tripping and falling on my ass right in front of the restaurant terrace for the viewing enjoyment of the assorted local patrons. Stupid farenj! Wiping blood off my face, I looked on the bright side: This’ll make me look damn tough, and mean, and maybe now I can grimace at the local kids and they’ll run away in terror: Ahhhhh!! Scary farenji!! Big lump, right between the eyes, like a tumor. Grrr… scary farenj.
To the Ethiopian Car Wash: drive down to the river, and then, drive right on in. Young local men stripped to their underwear, or further, splash and scrub and wipe, up to their knees in the fast-flowing water, make our muddy monster cleaner, and cleaner, and cleaner. Plenty of time to sit and watch the river scene. A handsome lean washer, in hot pink spandex briefs, offers me a hunk of gnawed off sugar-cane. I gladly accept, chewing on the wet, fibrous meat and then spitting out the leavings. Wow. Sugar cane. Cool.
Handsome young men bathing all down the riverbank, on the islands and on the other shore, 30 yards distant. The river is cool and fairly clear, and fast moving and only a few feet deep. I note that American Puritanical taboos of nakedness are virtually non-existent here. A little courteous modesty, but it’s all very practical. Men and women have no problem stepping a few feet away from a busy bus stop and dropping their pants to pee. Nobody stares, nobody blushes. Naked. That’s just the way people are, without clothes on. It makes me happy, after I think about it for a minute. Why should we have this American or Arab terror of the human body exposed? Not intending to let latent homoerotic feelings emerge here, but in all honesty, while sitting and watching the ease with which the men wash and splash about together in the river, and the fellows washing our car, bending and flexing, I was fascinated by the everywhere-present perfection of the human male form: the smooth, chocolate-dark skin; the perfectly toned muscles flexing and rippling; nowhere a single instance of the obesity or anorexia that seems to plague almost every American body, of any age. Their muscles were not grossly huge, nor small or lanky. It was… beautiful… seeing how the human body was meant to be, was created to be, under the strain of hard, healthy physical labor, of eating only what one needs, of living a life of many joys and few comforts (ok, that last one is a bit metaphysical, but … somehow it showed)… And it was stimulating… not so much sexually, but in an inspirational way. Well, I suppose if I was a young American female, it would have been very stimulating, but what I saw was The Human as Art, as perfection, as beauty achieved. Or maybe I’m just kidding myself and I was fascinated by everyone’s enviously enormous schlong. Who can say?
Enough of that. It was funny how the cars got washed right in the river. Dirty, but there aren’t too many cars in this part of the country, so as of yet, it’s probably not too detrimental to the river. Goodness, rivers are really the lifeblood of this country. Everything requires the river, from farming to washing to drinking, the Ethiopian rivers are well-used.
Shim and I chewed chat. Again. Ugh! … Why can’t I just say no to that damn stuff?? It’s so awful and it always makes me feel sick, but… it’s such a social institution here. Well, after sucking on that great bitter wad of cellulose in my cheek pouch for an hour or so, I had the distinct pleasure of witnessing a revolutionary moment: Shimeles got sick on the chat. And, better yet, he swore he’d never use the stuff again, a resolution which I made sure to support wholeheartedly. Then, we watched Michael Moore’s Sicko on Shim’s computer. I’m sure if any of you have watched it, you probably had similar feelings and I don’t need to describe them here. But I just kept thinking about it all evening, and even when Shim and I went out for dinner, we had a long conversation about politics and wisdom and world-leadership, and I was thinking and thinking about how we (Americans) can’t just keep waiting for the right leader to come along and take us all out of this darkness, this national tailspin, waiting for the right movement, the right moment, the right election, waiting always on someone else to light the fuse. That’s what’s wrong with the whole damn country, I think. It’s not George Bush, it’s not his administration or our political system or the evil times we live in. It’s us. It’s us apathetic, ambivalent citizens of the USA, crying our crocodile tears for the dead in Iraq, spewing lofty ideals over booze and coffee, and always holding out the hope that by casting our one vote and crossing our fingers, everything will turn out right.
Well, it won’t turn out right, not like that. We ALL need to be leaders, we ALL need to start the change we want to see happen, be the action, be our own leaders. And if I say we, I must be implying I. I’ve been thinking, and I think our country is in a much more dire crisis that it realizes. We’ve become so focused on the Iraq war, we’re all politically myopic. We see trouble abroad, and it blinds us to the deterioration at home. Deterioration of what? Of the very ideals our country is built on, that’s what. And it’s standing (or not standing) for those ideals, living (or not living) them that will determine the future of America on the world stage. I believe we’ve reached a crisis in our country that very few realize exists. I feel that right now, these next couple years, are absolutely critical in determining what sort of a country, a people, we Americans are going to be. Will our empire become a shining beacon, a light to which other nations can steer of their own free will… or will be continue to descend in a vat of viscous rhetoric, preaching freedom while we meet the terrorists violence for violence, blood for blood, proving that we are better terrorists than they, and that we can beat them at their own game… which means they win. We’re not so far off from that end as we think, is how I feel.
Anyway, I’ve been making resolutions (Binding? Non-binding?) about my political actions when I return to my home country. I like Barak. Get the man elected. You know it’s important, so try, lead, act! Now!
I’ve been thinking a lot also about speaking out against unchecked population growth, the unplanned spread of humanity across everything that makes Montana special (or America, for that matter) with no foresight whatsoever. There are no leaders in this fight. Can I be one? Should I? I pledge to involve myself politically, and to continue to involve myself socially as well. I want to bring some fresh new blood into the Rocky Mountaineers, share my love of the wild places with others, share my joys and in doing so, spread my beliefs. Some of the things I’ve been thinking. Big plans that will come to naught? I felt very similarly when I returned home from Europe, but I seem to remember the passion and hellfire that drove my spirit was quickly extinguished once I was back home and comfortable, happy, and could easily ignore the deterioration that is marching closer and closer to my home. Will I stand up and fight this time around? Maybe. Maybe. Or what of running off into the woods and turning a blind eye so I can live the life I’ve always dreamed of? Will I turn to that before I commit myself to spending my life at war? Fight for what I love, or just love it? Or will I instead become a sweater-wearing, knee-sock tromping be-spectacled gent, always glancing back over his shoulder wistfully at the life he might have had if he’d only had the guts to grab it, and always trying to convince himself that his mediocre existence was all for the best, in the end…

Stay tuned, dear readers, for the eventual conclusion of this page-turning quandary!