Africa - pre trip jitters

Enjoy this final blog on our trip to Africa. It's a glimpse into our psyches before we left - and a classic case of worrying about the things that never happen . . .

“You’ll have to learn to squat,” said Rex one evening out of the blue.

“Why?”

“To go to the loo. You won’t want to tip over backwards.”

“It’s you who’ll have to learn. Women have been squatting forever,” I retorted.

A few weeks later, having been inoculated against Yellow Fever by a specialist doctor who spent about an hour scaring us by detailing the countless medical nightmares on offer in Africa, I desperate for sleep - in the middle of the day.

The ‘wrong’ feeling was so minimal, it was only several days later that I figured with certainty it was a reaction to the vaccination.

No-one tells you about these things - not the full import of what it’s like building up for a trip to Africa.

It’s well worth having vaccinations. In 1867 the great-great grandfather of our neighbour contracted yellow fever while was helping the poor in Jamaica. He was a curate and only 33 when he died. This knowledge is as close as I want to get to the disease.

The next week I was transfixed by the shirt of our local doctor who we were seeing with a view to getting the rest of our vaccinations: flu, Hep A, typhoid, tetatnus, polio, diptheria. (It’s cheaper to go to your local GP for these jabs.) His shirt was sparkling, eye-dazzling white.

“You’ll need Immodium,” he was saying. “If you’re really streaming and have to get back on the truck, then take it, otherwise sit on a toilet and let it run. It’s better out than in.”

And his shirt was pressed to perfection, without as much as one crease. Was it brand new? 

I turned my attention to more pressing matters - the antibiotics we would be taking in case of dysyntery or infection. Plus we’d take doxycycline, a low-grade antibiotic which would help prevent malaria. The doctor explained that it only gave about forty percent cover, but taking the more effective alternative Malurone would cost us about $600 each. I guess it’s Madonna’s first choice. Others, like Lariam, can send emotionally wobbly people off track. I won’t take that, then.

He also said it would make us sun sensitive and could turn our teeth yellow. Lovely.

The next night the farmer and I watched a James Bond film in which 007 travels across North Africa.

“Has he got his vaccinations?” asked Rex.

“Sure. The MI6 organise them for him and he gets boosters every year,” I replied, while wondering what the Queen did when she went to Africa. She’d most certainly have used top-of the-range medicine. Would she have been surrounded by an army of people swishing mozzies aside, would her clothes have been soaked in permethrin?

These are the things people don’t talk about when they return from holiday because they’re marvelling at the wonders of wildlife, the joys of the journey, the thrills and hopefully no spills of their adventure. I’d trade tipping over backwards to be among them.

And of course, I was among them - without ever having to do the trade.