Well the last couple months of my life have been anything but typical, but I guess that, in itself, is typical of my peace corps experience.

I happened upon an article ’10 Urban Food Legends’ about three weeks too late, the following is important information to know while living in a developing nation:

“Food Poisoning is just a temporary nuisance. A bout of food poisoning is bad enough. No one wants to go through the gut-wrenching vomiting and diarrhea that seems endless. But most people assume that they’ll get over their food poisoning in a matter of hours or, at most, days. Not always. In a small percentage of cases, food poisoning can lead to long-term consequences. Among them: Guillain-Barre syndrome. This terrifying disease starts as tingling in the arms and legs and progresses to paralysis that can last for months. Reactive Arthritis. It’s an inflammation of the joints that’s triggered by an infection, and can last for years. Kidney or nerve damage. E. coli 0157:H7 is the bacterium that contaminated Jack in the Box hamburgers in 1993 and fresh spinach in 2006. A small number of victims end up with permanent kidney or nerve damage, and some die.”

After a very painful month (some days resulting in the inability to walk due to joint inflammation all over my body) and visits to one of the only rheumatoid specialists in Madagascar, as well as the only MRI machine, Peace Corps shipped me off to Pretoria, South Africa for further opinions. I was promptly diagnosed with Reactive Arthritis, triggered by the bout of food poisoning I had over two months ago at this point. Along with painful, inflamed joints, I also experienced eye inflammation and spinal pain. Who would’ve thought? Apparently you can be genetically prone for this happening, which I now know, I am. Luckily, as a PCV, I had possibly the best medical care I will ever have in my life, and they sorted me out just fine. I got to spend almost 3 weeks healing and enjoying the company of other medically evacuated PCVs from all over Africa. The fact that I couldn’t explain my story without cracking up (I mean c’mon a 23 year old with severe arthritis…) and the fact that I had a group of positive, good humored pcvs to hang out with, made my time go by about as pleasantly as possible, given the situation.

I also got a little taste of the developed world, complete with malls, grocery stores and movie theaters. My first trip to the grocery store resulted in me returning with just Oreos and apples; I was too overwhelmed with the options to decide on anything else. I got my fill of Sushi, played with baby lions and saw ‘Pirates of the Carribean 4,’ in 3D (I heard people watch tv this way in the states now!); but by the end of my time there I was itching to get back home (the Malagasy one). And arriving back in Diego was just as great as I imagined it to be.



The group at our first bbq in pretoria.



With 3 month old lions. they were stealing my shoes and gnawing on my jeans.