In retrospect, I know the exact moment I ingested the evil that wreaked such havoc on my system. It started as a delightful adventure, an afternoon without interviews and a thoughtful invitation from a receptionist to come to her home for lunch. I live for this kind of thing! Getting out of the hotels, meeting real people, being a part of a family. This is why I travel.
It took three different shared van rides to get to her house which was exciting- I get a thrill out of figuring out public transportation wherever I go. And the nice thing about Addis is that all transportation feels really safe because I have yet to see a vehicle that is capable of surpassing 30 miles per hour so I feel like high speed crashes are unlikely. People are a little shocked to see a foreigner on the shared vans and a lot of them smile at me and say "foreigner" in Amharic, in case I didn't know. But there really is no better way to see this city, each bus went to a major landmark and then we hopped off and on to another. It took about 2 hours to get to her home which was far outside the city.
I whipped out my trusty photo album to break the ice which worked like a charm and I saw all their family albums and could name every member of their extended family by photograph at the end. It was a ladies lunch with just her cousin and aunt. They prepared a 'fasting meal' for me meaning there was no meat (which is probably a good thing). It consisted of three different 'plops' for the injera (bread). One was red and made of beans, another was green and made of lentils, and the third was a kind of cottage cheese. Let's start by saying that there is no way this home had any means of refrigerating cheese. Let's also add that there is no way that this dairy product is familiar with the work of Louis Pasteur. My brain said, "steer clear of sketchy cheese" immediately. If only it were that simple...
I was clearly not an efficient consumer of Ethiopian food. While I am no stranger to eating with my hands, the bread was thin and my plops of deliciousness kept soaking through before I could get it in my mouth. So mama, in the most lovely intentioned manner, decides it's best if she makes me careful little bites- and then feeds them to me with her hand. It felt so intimate, like I was her daughter, as she fed me with her hands the choice bites... however these bites contained aforementioned cheese...
All was well until that night when I had all systems fail and we won't go back into that. After 8 hours of misery I called reception to find out what time pharmacies opened so I could buy some medicine. The news wasn't good and I couldn't stop vomiting long enough to google "when does food poisoning require medical attention" which I think was a pretty good sign that it was time. Reception called a driver to take me to the "foreigners clinic" which I was fine with after touring all the government hospitals. I waited until right after one vomit session to leave in hopes of holding off the next one until after I was out of the cab (success!) I got there before the doctor so the gardener gave me her cell phone number and when I called she told me to sit tight and she'd be there ASAP.
I have never been so well taken care of in my life. They took blood, set up an IV, dripped fluids into me, fed me, let me sleep, checked up on me every 15 minutes, gave me meds and soothing words... all for a total bill of $123. Yes, 8 hours of hospitalization complete with full doctor attention, an IV and meds totaled $123. To contrast that, I recently cut my finger (which involved a less than intelligent episode with a knife and a bag of chips) and got three stitches for a total of 8 minutes of medical attention in the US and it cost me $1064. The next day the Ethiopian doctor called me to see how I was feeling and had blood results back already. Amazing.
So I still love Addis, but... NO MORE SKETCHY CHEESE!
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