The Body Doth Protest Much

Ha. I think I've broken my own record since I've been in Pakistan -almost a week since I last blogged. Multiple forces at play though. Mainly, I have been ill, and there have been Internet connection problems in the Women's Residences all week, while I've been cooped up here.

And unlike the expression from which this blog entry title derives, I mean it sincerely: this week my body just totally caved. It started out with cramping and nausea and headaches and dizziness, calling in sick Monday. Tuesday more of the same forced me to go visit the doc at the AKU Community Health Centre (CHC, not to be confused with CHS, which is the department in which I'm working this summer). 2 hours later, and about 500 rupees (which is like $7, for the consult AND the drugs) later, I was back home, popping Cipro and Entamizole (which is diloxanide furoate / metronidazole) -evidently, trying to cover all bases (whether bacterial or parasitic in nature), and pouring Oral Rehydration Salts into my litres of water. Inshallah, they are working. It's my first time taking prescribed meds in years! And well, surely as much as they're helping, I'll bet my good health that they're also exacerbating my nausea, and killing off my good intestinal flora too (because these drugs will just kill everything... I still have my reservations about prescribed drugs, but I was just getting desperate and I don't have the variety of naturopathic stuff that I usually have at home, at my disposal here!).

Needless to say, with a kichri (mushed rice and split green lentils which is light on the stomach)-based diet over the last few days, I was gradually getting better, and then I made the poor choice of eating yogurt with rice last night (the kichri had run out), and so, today was a day of regression from my progress... Don't feel badly for me, please just pray I get better ASAP so that I can go back to doing what I came here to do!

Basically, I have not gone to work all week. I finished watching "Stephen Hawking's Universe", and finished reading The White Tiger. I also turned on my TV here for the first time since living in this dorm room, to discover that I actually get HBO, BBC, FOX and an Arab/Dubai-based station that shows American films, TV series, etc. I watched Mama Mia! yesterday -it's really quite entertaining -light (obviously), but how can one not enjoy the combination of Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth. I'm almost done reading How Doctors Think and have taken a sizeable bite out of the very long, philosophical, masterpiece-of-a-novel, The Fountainhead.

And today, I watched the Audrey Hepburn classic Roman Holiday. And this last was a wonderful experience because I realized that it was the first Audrey Hepburn movie I ever saw: I was probably 10 years-old (or younger) when I first saw it on TV -my first black-and-white, and I loved it -watched the whole darn thing (which says a lot because as you know, most kids don't have the patience for black-and-white films). My whole life (since then), I have been trying to find this movie whose name I didn't know, nor the names of the actors starring in it, that I had found so absolutely enchanting. And then today at last, after having borrowed it from our good family friends, I discovered it. And loved it (again, and probably more with all that longing since my childhood) -absolutely loved it! Probably one of my favourite movies of all time, I think.

So there you have it. This is what happens to someone capable of deeper and more meaningful reflections, when they become a prisoner in their bedroom for a week. I guess it all happens for a reason though, as they say. Apparently this kind of GI-sick is a rite of passage here, and through all the pain and the nausea, the little diversions have been enjoyable, I suppose. I'm really ready to go back to work though! Really, really. Pray for my belly ;)

Tough up, stomach!