Week 35: Confinement

In Tswana culture it is tradition for a woman to stay inside her house (or her mother’s house) for three months after giving birth. At this point in my life I cannot imagine having a baby and equally so I cannot imagine staying inside for three months. I got a bit sick this week and as a result spent two days in my house leaving only to use the pit latrine and refill my water buckets. The first day of this, I was also quite disoriented, slept most of the day and when I did wake up and looked at the time I was always confused as to am or pm and what day of the week it was. Day two I read the majority of Call the Midwife, baked bread, did some writing, watched the Darjeeling Limited cleaned up a bit from the sickcapedes the day before, all with frequent intermitted rest breaks and still I was quite restless and grateful it was only a 48 hour type of thing.

“I’m your Doctor” These were the words my landlady proclaimed as she lovingly raced towards my door. My land lady is the sweetest and this week when I was sick she took over checking in on me and much to my disliking making me drink oral rehydration salts as well as gave me an intestine rub. I was able to stave off her efforts to take me to the clinic (Peace Corps has their own doctors that they pay for insurance and paperwork reasons) In my effort to dissuade her giving me drugs I showed her my Peace Corps medical kit, which I felt demanded too much energy for me to go through, as a result I could see her out of the corner of my eye going through the kit and in my head I remember thinking, oh it would be so much easier for me to read through the labels they are all in English, however, I was passed out on my bed and could not muster the energy to walk the few steps towards her. In the end she came over with what looked like allergy medicine and I was able to thank her for all of her hard work and ask if I could see the kit, so as not to be pill popping inappropriate medication, of course I left the last bit off. My energy was then completely depleted by the Med Kit fiasco and when she tried to give me an intestine/tummy rub, I was all hers and in my sick stupor this did not even seem strange to me. Seeing that what ever was wrong passed, perhaps it was all the intestine rub and I have my land lady to thank for that.