Detour along the journey

Getting malaria in Africa is tough. Getting malaria in Africa while homeless is even tougher. Getting malaria in Africa while homeless, having spent the last week in a certainly less-than-luxurious hotel, with few prospects for finding permanent residence, while unsure as to the direction of my organization, and often asking God, "why am I here?" is probably one of the toughest experiences of my otherwise relatively easy life, and comes together on paper to form one of the longest run-on sentences ever. When you're sick in Africa, your mind tends to do funny things. You become more aware of every wave of heat over your body, sure that you're feverish. Every ache informs you of your frailty and tells you that soon you won't have the strength to leave your bed. And every seeming shot of fire through your veins becomes the disparaging proof that you have a potentially murderous malarial parasite infecting your bloodstream and attacking every area of your internal structure. Thoughts of dying 7000 miles away from home in an under-funded sub-Sahara African hospital try to find their way into your scattered daydreams, and it's difficult to push them out. But then you think of the ease with which you were able to have your malady diagnosed and treated, and the little it hurt you to hand over the 20,000 Ugandan shillings to receive effective medication. And then you're forced to think of the millions- millions- in this same region who die every year because for them receiving treatment is not so simple. And you are humbled. And you pray. And then you think back to your own situation, and realize that you're being very dramatic, and that if you keep it up, your mother just might get way more scared than is really necessary, and ask you to come home early. So you stop writing.