Well, I don’t know if it was really too much fun but if I were to watch a movie of today, say, in three years time I would probably be laughing a lot. Sultan, and Ismail, (brothers), Ismail’s first wife Asmat, and I found our way onto a bus and made it to Chitaguppa after about an hour ride. This morning and last night my stomach wasn’t really feeling much like food, but I didn’t worry much about it and figured I would ask Chetuma, the wife of the watchman, Malshetti, at the Dak Bungalow, if she could boil up a bit of my passionfruit skins to make my passionfruit skin tea. She boiled them until the water was a brownish green and then, after letting it cool, I poured the tea into my waterbottle.

When I took my first sip on the bus I realized something else was in my tea. Chetuma must have boiled the water in a pot she used for cooking spices because the tea was very spicey (and not so nicey.)

After getting to Rukiah’s home and sitting down I started to feel feverish. In about 30 minutes my head went fuzzy and my vision started to turn gray. I remember experiencing this once before in my life (at a presidential rally in Seattle, 1992) and I knew that fainting might be next so I sat down on the floor. I felt very weak and did not eat anything for lunch and basically just slept while the rest of the bunch ate.

They were concerned about me and thought that they should take me to the hospital. After a while I concurred that going to see a doctor would be a good thing, so they hired a taxi and we all drove to Bagdal and then to Bidar to find a doctor. We met Rukiah’s relative, Naim, a lecturer in Bidar, and he helped us find a doctor that was open on Sunday afternoon. I think because I was American or a least foreign I got extra special treatment, cutting into the waiting line. I know it doesn’t sound fair and I felt bad, but I guess I didn’t feel bad enough to make a big fuss about it and insist on waiting my turn.

The doctor said that I likely had some sort of infection and that was the cause of the fever. I didn’t want to take unnecessary medication so he only gave me a paracetamol tablet to take down the fever and a prescription for an antibiotic in the case that the symptoms persisted. Within an hour after taking the paracetamol tablet I was feeling better. I was not allowed to pay for anything today, the taxi, the doctor, the food, the medication. I was very thankful for their generosity, but will find a way to say thank-you for this treatment.

I fell asleep early and slept about 13 hours.

TAD