Chapter 6 - Welcome Home, Malaria boy!

“Where are you going. You can’t go anywhere.”
“I’m going home. I’m fine now.”
“You have malaria.”
“No I don’t. I’m ok.” I knew I wasn’t but I wasn’t losing anymore marbles in that place. I swung my legs across the bed and managed to hold down the vomit.
“You can’t go.”
“Come on, give me the bill.”
It came to two and a half million cedi, including the damage to the window, and out of James’ bag he pulled a mountain of 20,000 notes. We waited while they counted it. The doctor gave me some advice and some more meds: quinine to make me yet more deaf, parmaquine, mefloquine. How about some tangerine?
“So, will this recur forever?”
All they said was it wouldn’t. Later a medical student, Matt, checked my notes against information on the Internet and said it was true. That was reassuring. How could people live with the strains that can make them relapse every year? You couldn’t live anything like a normal life with it. Not knowing you could be debilitated for a month or longer every year.

“You’re lucky man. You’re lucky you caught it here. They know how to treat people here. In England you could have been dead. Worst that might happen is splenomegaly. Enlargement of the spleen. You’re lucky.”
”Maybe I was. I weighed just barely eight stone and had trouble walking and still couldn’t stomach food for a long time. I didn’t even smoke or drink ‘til I felt better going on for a month later.

When they got me out I was taken home in a taxi and never loved people the way I did all the friends I had there. I mumbled on and on about my watch and why couldn't they speak up and what happened to that ginger thing and whatever happened to my friends from home and ranted about this, that and the other and get me on a flight, etc etc. In the house my watch sat on the side next to my cd's and books. I tried to enjoy the last few days of my stay but I was desperate to get home. My body still felt ravaged, but much less so. I slept a lot. My appetite returned but I couldn't eat a thing. Fu fu, gari, kelewele, kenkey and special shitsu just didn't appeal. Staple diet in the volunteer's house was crisps and imported chocolate and omlettes and they appealed even less.

One day a couple of days after leaving hospital I decided it was time to split. I hadn't a reservation and it was high season. Day after day, four times anyway, I went to the airport and said goodbye to my friends, as they weren't allowed inside. People waited each day and a few were called and each time I returned home in a taxi and got moody and wanted out. And one day I got there about five hours early and begged for a place on that plane and when they went through the list and I saw some of my new waiting list friends desperate to get to Babylon finally go through I thought I'd never get home. Then at the very last moment they called my name. I was on and first class upgrade too! And I pitied the person who sat next to me because I must have looked a state. I couldn't drink the free champagne but I managed some orange juice.

My brother picked me up at 6am at Heathrow. I surprised and scared the hell out of him. But he had to work. It was a Friday morning. He dropped me at Burnham Beeches, a huge wood in Berkshire, ‘til he finished work. I could barely stand still but it was a beautiful hot sunny English day so I slept in the wood for five hours then got lost and it took him ages to find me but he was cool with it. He didn't really believe I'd had malaria. I don't think he knew what it was really. We went to see some new friends of his and they laughed at me and called me Malaria Boy and we went to some pub in Ealing. Man, did I feel estranged from west London. I couldn't drink or do anything. I was still sick. It took a while but I guess I got better in the end. I don't know if my health suffered as it's always been pretty shit. Maybe I should have taken the drugs with me instead of the bravado and recklessness. I never fancied Larium; a drug that is made to sound so horrible you think nothing could be worse. Things can be. Mind you, if it's all that bad I'm not surprised my friends the mosquito's won't eat it either. Next time, however, I would be persuaded to take it. I never had a recurrence, but I would say, ‘Do Not Get Malaria' too. It ain't no joke. And maybe that's why Mikey didn't find it funny.

Maybe there's something in the virus that transmits into humans, maybe there's something that sits in you forever and makes you an eternal head-case for the rest of your life, something no drug or wax enema up the arse can destroy. Whatever, as with all other experiences I've had travelling I'm only left with a story and no regrets. Larium or not.

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