WELCOME TO AFRICA

For the past week I've been feeling tired. Climate. Season change from dry to wet. Plus a bit of sore throat, slightly running nose... all in all I considered myself lucky to be suffering from such a mild cold instead of malaria. Little did I know. Friday night we were invited to dinner at our friends' house. The food looked great but I was somehow unable to eat. I felt sick and after a while my stomach started to ache. Something I'd eaten during the day? By the time the lovely apple pie appeared on the table, I could hardly sit up, so we decided it was time to leave.

Convinced I was suffering from indigestion, I went to bed. Three hours later both Jandro and I were woken up by my loud moaning and I found myself feeling awfully sick and suffering from a dreadful stomachache. I will spare you a detailed description of bouts of diarrhea interspersed with uncontrolled vomiting. Let's just say that when, 5 hours later, I started throwing up water, we thought it was time to act.

At 5:45 am we got into the car and drove to a private clinic, founded by Omar Bongo's second wife. The doctor examined me with his sleepy eyes and decided hospitalisation was the best solution. Frantically repeating "non non! maison!", I let him know that I was not going to stay in hospital. He frowned at my rejecting his institution's comfortable facilities but prescribed some drugs and let me go (apparently, they try to hospitalise as many people as possible because it's money). He also ordered blood tests to see if it was really just indigestion.

We decided not to buy the antibiotic until we knew what my results were. I thus only took the anti-vomiting syrop. I was sick, tired, in great pain and practically unconscious. I couldn't lie down (made me feel even more sick) and I was extremely week. Around 11:30, as we were entering the hospital grounds to pick up my results, a taxi driver tried to overtake and ended up hitting us. A car accident was all we needed at the time.

Immediately, there were around eight Gabonese people around us, some of them taking our side, the others taking the side of the furious taxi-driver, who insisted it was our fault. They were arguing loudly and we left them in the street and went into the hospital. While we were waiting for my results in the freezing lab (they are crazy about the air-conditioning), a couple of men who witnessed our accident came looking for us with the owner of the taxi (the driver had already disappeared). He seemed to accept that it wasn't our fault but insisted on calling the police. In our innocence, we said yes.

The police arrived at the very same time as my doctor so I had to go into the doctor's office on my own. I managed to talk to him in French and would've felt quite successful but I was too busy trying not to throw up at the time (I've heard about a person who did throw up on the hospital floor and was consequently given a mop to clean up). I was rather surprised to find out that I was suffering from a mild version (mild version?!) of typhoid fever, which only affected me a little due to my vaccination. I exclaimed that it was indeed very serious (or something to that effect) and the doctor laughed. I was taken home by our helpful neighbour, as Jandro was still with the police.

Only when he got home did I find out how the police incident ended. I was not expecting problems - I mean, come on!, typhoid fever and car accident seemed kind of enough for one day. Little did I know. The policeman's first words to my boyfriend were: "You French colonizers can't drive!". In spite of the witnesses' statements, he put us down as the ones who'd caused the accident. As Jandro had forgotten his driving licence, they told him to come back to the police station in the evening.

He did not, however, go back. Apart from being exhausted himself, he decided that it would be better not to go alone. Around 8 pm he received a phone call: "This is the police. We had an appointment". He explained that I was sick and he had 48 hours to come back, which he would on Monday. This time the policeman was very polite and told Jandro to take care of me.

How will the story end? I'll let you know. But it sure was a day to remember... "Welcome to Africa", our neighbour said.