DAY 32 – FOOD FOR THOUGHT
SYNOPSIS: A sick-day in Mopti with loving people to take care of me. Timbuktu has to wait.
Bhaiṣajyaguru has grounded me and there is no arguing with him: I got sick overnight. But I only had to crawl out of my mosquito net and make it the five feet into a clean, tiled bathroom with a flushing Western-style toilet. What a breeze! Thanks, Bhaiṣajyaguru, a location, well chosen. If I have to be sick, I will happily be sick here!
I am running a fever, have a huge headache and most likely am on the way to dehydration, and for sure I am exhausted, from what, I am not sure as I hardly did anything. I decided that it was time to feel sorry for myself. It’s that fetal position syndrome when you whimper a bit just because and don’t want to move anymore. Around noon Degedege came to pick me up to take me to the boat to Timbuktu. I don’t think so!
He stopped by two more times in the day to order rice for me and to bring me mint, which he had discovered, I liked to use for tea. That was very kind. And there was another knock on the door: The owner of the Doux Reves Hotel, a French woman named Dominique. She too, came concerned to see if a doctor should be called and I immediately had a very good feeling about her. I was in good hands here!
I would have loved to just sleep and sleep and sleep, but I had to drink. So I kept myself in a semi-conscious state of wake and made sure, sip by sip, to drink 1.5 liters by mid-day and 1.5 liters by night. Most of it went right through, still – sip by sip – serious dehydration is the worst and has landed me in two hospitals before, Egypt and Peru respectively; it has to be avoided!
Am I bringing this on by eating the wrong things? If it were up to me, I would only eat mangoes and fruits and drink hibiscus and peppermint tea. But no, the diet here is heavy in carbohydrates, very fatty, salty, meat and fish oriented and tea is drunk in small, very concentrated quantities with loads of sugar. I brought on the laughter of the staff at two Auberges when I insisted on boiling hibiscus and mint leaves and to drink a whole kettle full of watered-down flavored liquid. That was not tea Malian style. But I could hardly bear to drink the warm or hot tasteless water anymore. I hated every sip of it. The tea on the other hand, I could put down easily. And mangoes I could eat three a day!
It is possible, that my mangoes contributed to the sickness today. But it is much more likely that the week in Dogon country – even though I really did nothing; everything was done for me – did me in. I just had to stop for a day and rest and Bhaiṣajyaguru got his message across loud and clear. By evening I still felt sluggish and not much better, but at that point I had a Coke and that did wonders in perking me up.
Dominique and I sat down at night chatting for an hour. For 20 years she has lived in Mali and for 13 years run this wonderful hotel. I am the only guest and have been for many weeks. It’s the same story everywhere! I love my room here – it’s big! Not only do I have my large bed, a desk and a sitting corner next to a window, I have another window on the other side of the room and that means cross ventilation! That is something wonderful. Again, Bhaiṣajyaguru could not have picked a better place for me. It’s that manifesting thing.
I am optimistic now that I will be as good as new tomorrow and ready for that boat ride to Timbuktu. Needless to say, I will be without electricity or internet, but who needs it except me? I hope that the infrastructure in Timbuktu is up to the point of charging at least the computer for blogging. Images are a different matter and you probably noticed that the images of Dogon country lagged behind the posts. There was no way around it with the limited electricity and charging times I have.
More from Timbuktu!