Typhoid Outbreak

Walking to the office from school I run into Kelley and her mom. They took Carol to a place in Mukono today to see why she is ill. It turns out she has Typhoid. They put her on some antibiotics. They ask me if I’ve ever heard of the medicine. I haven’t. They are going to ask the nurses when they get back.

I work on my lesson plans in the office. I’m buying posters and putting math problems on the top. Tomorrow I’m going to split the classes into groups. They will figure out the problem, write it out and present it to the class for their approval. This way, the kids who have no problem understanding me or math can help those students who don’t really understand me, or the math.

I come home and little Wasswa is scream-crying in his yard across from ours. His arm is bleeding near his elbow where a scab has reopened. It’s pretty big. I go across the street to ask the nurses if I can use a pair of their latex gloves.

The nurses have gathered everyone into the front yard. They have paper and pen and they are holding a seminar. I ask Kelley what’s going on.

“There’s a Typhoid outbreak. Three more kids were tested today in Mukono and they all had it.”

When I met with the health department I was told that I should get five specific vaccinations. I could only afford three. I chose to exclude Hep B and Typhoid.

I think about this as I cross the street and tend to Wasswa, who screams bloody murder when I clean his wound. I finally let him go and he ran into the kitchen/hut. His brother, Kato went to get him, but he was screaming so much and it was getting dark that I told Kato to let him go. I gave him a bandaid and showed him how he should put it on Wasswa’s arm.

The nurses are teaching the children about how Typhoid is transmitted and what must be done to prevent it from spreading to everyone. This disease is spread through feces and water. None of the kids drink boiled water. From now on they have to use clean drinking water and wash their hands. They are not to share any food or plates or silverware. The silverware thing won’t be much of a problem, because they eat with their hands. Which is obviously how they got the sickness.

Fran and Marilyn are supposed to go with the others into the fishing villages to teach this week, but they are staying behind to sort all this stuff out. I can’t imagine what would have happened if they weren’t here.

I hope I don’t get Typhoid.

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I talk to the nurses and they tell me news about Mabel. She does not have pneumonia, malaria, or anything wrong with her head. The doctor says it was “hysteria.”

What? Hysteria? What the heck is that supposed to mean. The doctor suggests she gets counseling on dealing with stress. She is at home with her parents and is coming to stay again at the dorm in a few days.

Africa is so weird.

The nurses and who ever else was home told Dora and everyone not to cook, that we will eat in Ntenjeru. I wish they would have called me and told me. I was craving a rolex, but thought I should save room so I could eat dinner.

Poor Dora, the 20 year old girl who helps Lydia around the white house, doesn’t understand much English at all. All the chaos from the Typhoid scare is probably really confusing for her. I go into the kitchen and Carol is making chapati.

I ask what in the world she is doing. I told her that she has a sickness that is contagious and is transmitted through things like the hands. She is kneading dough and if the chapati isn’t fully cooked, a person can easily get typhoid from her. I tell her I’m not trying to make her feel bad, but she was told not to be in the kitchen.

The nurses have food in their rooms, and Kelley’s mom isn’t hungry. Jeff, Kelley, and I set out for Ntenjeru in the dark. When we get to the bottom of the hill Jeff mentions that there is pasta at home. We love pasta and decide it will be an easy meal that we can cook for ourselves.

Cooking at home is different from cooking here. The kitchen is a room with dirt floors and chickens. There are small clay stoves on the ground with some charcoal. I ask Dora for some help and she gets the charcoal going and adds water to a pot. They make pasta here like we make hamburger helper.. just enough water to cook the pasta.

I cut up two tomatoes and an onion and mix it with some solid cooking oil called “Cowboy.” I pour in one package of noodles in the pot. Jeff and I are so hungry so we pour in one more package. This is way too much pasta and it hardly fits in the pot.

At this time, words has gotten out that Jeff and Adam are cooking in the kitchen. All the kids crowd in the doorway and some inside the kitchen to watch us and yell out pointers. Jeff tells them that if we were home he’d make pasta so good it would make them cry. They thought it was the funniest thing that I didn’t add any salt to what I was cooking.

I tell the kids to get away because they all have Typhoid. They laugh and laugh and now it’s the biggest joke here to accuse each other as having Typhoid. And to say things like, “Good Night, Adam. See you in the morning you have Typhoid.”

“OK, goodnight Dorothy Typhoid, have a good Typhoid night.”

I heat up the sauce I made, melting the cooking oil and sautéing the tomato and onion a bit. The noodles are very soggy and starchy. I wish I could rinse them, but I’d have to cook some more water. (They call boiling water, cooking water here.) It already took about an hour for this water to boil, so we are just going to have to deal with starchy noodles.

We’ve made too much, so I have all the kids get their plates. I slop the extra noodles onto different colored plates, lids, and cups that the kids use for eating. As much as they made fun of Jeff and me, they’re plenty eager to try our food.

I bring the food inside the white house and Jeff, Kelley, and I eat while watching some Strangers With Candy on my laptop. Good times…