Zing! Up at 7 and running! I’m tired as heck — even a hot shower and some extra strong instant coffee don’t do much to change that. We’re going to Nordenfeld today, we were there exactly a week ago. They are supposed to have power now; we physically set up the color machines last time we were there but they had an outage so we were not able to configure them. I am dead tired and a little out of it from having only an hour and a half sleep. Zenzo notices and says I’m very quiet today.
One of the teachers is going to meet us there since it’s vacation week and everything is locked up. We wait a bit for her and listen to a radio debate about how the government is handling problems with their welfare system. I forget what they call it here, but it’s basic wealth redistribution. The moderator brings up charges of inefficiency and corruption, and the officials are polite and evasive. It sounds a lot like back home.
Once the teacher arrives we go in, power things up, and spend several hours fixing small hardware problems and setting up software.
We’re wrapping up as we approach noon, and Alan finds a couple of unusably bad mousepads. They’re round and so we take them outside to toss them like frisbees. They don’t fly very straight, but at shorter distances they’re catchable. Zenzo and I improvise a game of double-catch, and work our way up to simultaneously catching each other’s throws from about five meters. It’s good fun in the noonday sun. We joke that we should go around and perform.
We head back towards Dundee, and stop at Enyanyeni to see if Matthew, the principal, is there. He’s not, so we just hang out and have lunch. Donna cracks out the magic bean salad and a bunch of apples.
We get back to the trailer and hang out for a bit, but I am feeling too tired to socialize, so I bid everyone farewell and I go back to the backpackers to sleep.
But even though I’m tired, I can’t seem to sleep right away. Instead I read and think and have a light dinner. Then I finally drift off to bed, probably at around 7PM.
Yep, not much to write about today. But I have been thinking about health.
I stopped taking my malaria pills. Started off by forgetting last week, then I just figured what the heck. This isn’t a malaria zone; it’s not even that close to one. And it’s the wrong time of the year. And though I hadn’t noticed any for the three weeks I took it, the side effects listed are pretty rough. From the literature:
“People taking Lariam occasionally experience severe anxiety, feelings that people are against them, hallucinations, depression, unusual behavior, or feeling disoriented. There have been reports in some patients these side effects continue after Lariam is stopped. Some patients taking Lariam think about killing themselves, and there have been rare reports of suicides.”
Doesn’t that sound like the list of side effects for most schedule 1 drugs? Not that I want to spread undue fear about malaria medicine; I would take it if I were in a malaria zone. But why take it if I don’t need to? So I’m not. Sophie won’t be taking it either on her visit.
On more mundane health issues: I’ve had acne pretty much my whole life. If you’ve known me and not noticed, I should mention that I did use a bit of concealer during particularly bad times.
Over the years I’ve tried every regimen that was available. I’ve washed and disinfected until my skin went red and scaly, I’ve done a simple gentle wash and a light moisturizer, I’ve eschewed soap and skin preparations entirely. I’ve taken extra hot showers, and extra cold showers. I’ve been a vegetarian, an Atkins carnivore, and a junk food hound. None of it solved the problem, though it did seem that the gentler I was on my skin the better. Still I had continuous mild breakouts.
And beyond just the annoyance of having the acne, it bothered me on an intellectual level. Why should my body be experiencing continuous skin infections? That didn’t seem like something that would make its way through natural selection (or intelligent design, if that’s your thing). What was wrong with my immune system? Was I defective?
I believe that in general we are made to work well in our environment, so I have a dislike for solving health problems with high tech solutions. I figure that there is some state of living where my skin would function as it should. I don’t believe, for example, that my face was experiencing a benzoyl peroxide deficiency, as much as Stridex might like me to think otherwise.
However, last year I finally did find something that worked for me: clindamycin gel. It’s a mild prescription antibiotic ointment, applied daily. That made the first serious, undeniable improvement in my acne that I can recall. So I used that for the past year and it worked pretty well; I rarely had any breakouts. And though it still didn’t jive with my sensibilities — I don’t believe I had a clindamycin deficiency either — it worked in practice so I went with it.
Then I decided not to bring it with me on this trip. I don’t know why. I just wanted to go natural. I was thinking I wouldn’t cut my hair and such either. I was going back to the ultimate motherland, and I wanted to live simply. I would brush my teeth and use the internet, however. I’m weird but I’m not crazy.
So I stopped using clindamycin when I left Las Vegas. I spent just over a week in Rhode Island, and of course, I broke out. No surprise. The photo I got there for my international driver’s license looks like someone might have slapped me around a bit beforehand. I started regretting my decision not to bring the clindamycin, but I just figured I’d live with it. Who cares if I’m a pimply mess in Dundee?
But once I got here in South Africa, I pretty much stopped breaking out. Three weeks in and I’m as clear as I ever was when I was using the clindamycin. My current regimen is: shower every day or two with warm water and no soap. I shave every couple days with the local brand of shaving cream. That’s it. I haven’t even been using sunblock. My diet is mostly light and healthful, though I do eat PB&J sandwiches and have had a few deep fried meals.
Aside from the acne, over the past three years I’ve had an increasing dandruff problem and some dermatitis on my cheeks near my nose. It’s basically a bit of red, itchy skin that gets flakey. It’s not uncommon for people as white as me. But it was annoying and a bit unsightly. Moisturizing seemed to help a bit, and I tried with limited success some prescription medicated washes like Nizoral (now available without prescription!), but something was still not quite right. Both of these problems have improved dramatically in the past few weeks as well. And I’m using nothing at all.
So what is it? I have no idea. Maybe it’s the physical environment? Different chemicals and bacterial flora on me? Maybe it’s the dietary changes? Eating less? Maybe it’s the change in life and responsibility? Less stress? But I’ve had relaxing times at home, and I’ve had a few stressful moments here. So I really don’t know what has changed. But here I am in the ultimate motherland and my body is working as well as it does.
In the end, I find it satisfying that I’ve found an environment or lifestyle that is more compatible with my physiology, even if I’ll only be here for another month. I’m curious if my little medical annoyances stay away for the remainder of the trip, and I’m even more curious to see if they return when I get back home. We shall see, we shall see.