Being sick in Benin

Everyone has to get sick at some point, right? I haven’t been sick at all so far until now. And now it hit me good. The interesting part of the story is that I got sick in Kpalimé, in Togo, and so did everyone else, even the driver. We decided to skip the rest of the program and try to get back to Grand Popo as fast as possible. It took 6 hours with regular stops along the road so that people could throw up in the bush. What a lovely feeling. Crossing the boarder at noon in 38 degree heat wasn’t the most exciting thing I have done in a while. It is interesting how you can handle a situation when you must. When I came home I completely collapsed. Three days without food and barely any liquid at all. Fever swinging from 34.7 to 39 and back down to 34. I spent the days in my room, in bed, looking at the monotone movement of the fan. Everyone kept telling me that it is obviously malaria, that the food poisoning (or whatever it was) had triggered but turned out to “just” be a serious infection. What sort of infection and where about in the body they couldn’t say. Now I have plenty of medicines and feel good. Malaria wouldn’t have been a surprise even though I take Lariam as we already have three Finns down with malaria since January. Otherwise Kpalimé was a very nice city 120km north of Lomé and the nature was stunning. We hiked to a waterfall, jumped in the refreshing water, played the drums, drank sangria, laughed and enjoyed ourselves, until the disaster. Did I mention that I have started to play the drums? I am not very good at it but it is fun and I will learn.

Now I am back at work, Nisse is also back in shape, well at least sort of, and Linni is visiting me from Lomé. She will go and work in Cotonou for 6 weeks so hopefully we will see more of her now that she doesn’t have to cross a boarder to get to Grand Popo.

I still have plenty thoughts about staying in the country. I would definitely want to stay, that is for sure, but it all depends on work possibilities and salaries… There are for example plenty of local NGO’s that do a good job which would be interesting to take part in but they can’t afford to pay a salary. There is for example a very interesting feminist organisation called Federation Nationale des Associations des Femmes Beninoises that work in all areas of women’s rights. I could imagine staying and follow the work they do just for a few months even if they can’t pay me, just for the experience. This would though require some sort of income from somewhere, maybe from articles.. In Dakar, Senegal, there is United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) where it of course would be super interesting to work or do an internship. On the other hand that is not Benin or Togo where I would like to stay. But why not Dakar? could be interesting. The international NGO’s often take employees that are already enrolled in the organisation in Europe and all the French people in the country come on a three year work contract from France. Benin doesn’t exactly have a “look for job” internet site that would function so it is difficult to know how to proceed. The problem is also the salary unless it is international organisation that pays in the direction of a European salary or at least an internship. Working for 50-150 euros a month doesn’t feel to exciting, at least as I have loans to pay off, in Finland. Maybe it means that I will stay in Finland for a while, until the next journey. Interesting to see where life takes me this time.

Thank you for the calls and sms I have been receiving when sick. It is particularly nice to hear voices from back home when sick.