You know what really makes up for living in a place where there’s no air conditioning, indoor plumbing, constant electricity, supermarkets, Popeye's, or paved roads; what makes up for living in an eternal sweltering summerland with mice and an interminable number of cockroaches as roommates-- well, that is besides giant cold cheap beers?? I'll tell you...it's an endless supply of fresh tropical fruit.
It’s
grown all around me. I can’t escape it. Everywhere I go - pineapples, papaya,
plantains, bananas, passion fruit, oranges, and mangos! Mangos! With the
shortest fruit-producing season of them all, mango trees become an exorbitant source of sweet succulent droppings. Five
for twenty cents. They grow so many and
so quickly that many will rot before they can all be consumed. Mango bread, mango smoothies, mango jelly, mango wine - I'm going to make it all! The same anticipation that Louisianians feel
about Mardi Gras season goes here for mango season. And, the season just started in Njombé about two weeks ago. Finally, my first mangoes in country! The community-initiative group that I work with started drying
their first batch of mangoes for the year. It smelled amazing! That day, I must have eaten five of those juicy little monsters in an embarrassingly short (and unwilling to disclose) amount of time. A happy
glutton...
...to be punished.
The inner monologue for the last thirteen days: Gross – why are the corners of my
mouth blistering? What is this rash on my arm? It itches. Real bad. Why is it spreading to my neck, ear, gut, and
legs? It itches. Stop. I’m overreacting –
just look in the Peace Corps Medical Book. Nope, nope, nope – not that. Don't open that book again. It's freaking me out -- I’m going to
die of so many things here! It feels like poison ivy – there’s no poison ivy in
Africa. You know. You looked before you came - your one known torturous allergy isn't creeping here. Being in Cameroon gets you one completely free get-out-of-jail card for that - no fun annual summer steroid shot, oatmeal baths, or full-body pink cream slatherin's this year. Maybe
it’s because I switched my type of malaria prophylaxis last week. I’m sleeping better though. It’s worth the rash. No, no it's not. Cameroonians are definitely going to comment about this to
you - and not exactly tactfully. Be cool. Stop scratching. There’s no
hiding it. Is it scabies? I’m going to infect everyone. Damn school kids – they must have done this
to me. Stop being a baby – it’s really not
worth an un-desirous adventure in navigating your way through a Cameroonian
hospital, which may or may not actually help you. It itches. Just wait until you go to Yaoundé next week and see the Peace
Corps Medical Officer. They’ll fix
you. Just keep dopin’ on that
Benadryl...it can't last forever. I hates it!
Mangoes. Their sap contains the same pain-to-elizabeth-bringing oil (urushiol) that poison ivy boasts. And, I’m surrounded by them.
It’s cool though. I’ve been
given multiple prescriptions that entail taking multiple pills, multiple times a day for
the next 30 days. PCMO said it should
help.
Ahh, well. I guess I'll just have to go back to the beach in a few months where I can swim all day and eat that day's fresh caught lobster and squid, for cheap, to make up for it. Damn you Cameroon! You still win.
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