Pakane, mi yewnitii maa!!!!

Squishy couches, air conditioning, hot showers, an endless supply of American movies and tv shows and everyone around me speaks english. Who knew that Peace Corps was so, well, comfortable! Minus the crippling pain under my right rib, the inconvenient IV in my arm that, after day 4, became so painful that I couldn't stand another minute of it and the mind-numbing headache, I'd say its a pretty nice stay in Dakar!

Last Wednesday I headed back to the village after having to come up to Dakar for the SeneGAD (gender development) meeting. On the way home, my stomach started feeling a little "iffy" if you will. But, considering this is Senegal, and my stomach is never really normal, I shrugged it off and figured it would just go away. Come morning, lets just say, things did not improve. To put it lightly, death would have been a relief. On a normal day, my temperature is around 96 degrees. I guess I'm just cold-blooded. But anyway, I had a fever of 101 and I could barely move or breath because the pain was so bad. Finally, I sucked it up and called our doctors. As I feared, they insisted that I come back to Dakar immediately. I said no. Mi Jabaa! I mean, I had just gotten back to the village the day before and felt bad leaving again so soon. She told me to go to Kaolack early in the morning. Bright and early at 630AM, the doctor called back to see if I had left yet. I had not, because I couldn't get out of bed. She sent a car to my village to pick me up since I couldn't walk myself out to the road. Yikes! Maybe I should have listened Thursday.

Turns out, the driver was an A-hole and decided that his personal errands (bargaining for corn for 4 hours on the side of the road) were more important than a sick volunteer. Needless to say, my doctor was not pleased. After finally making it to come pick me up at noon (5 hours late), we were on our way to Dakar. I made it there at 5 and was admitted to the hospital immediately. I was so scared, but my doctor stayed with me the entire time I was there and went to every test with me. It was nice to have someone to speak french for me, since I could barely think in english as it was! Chest x-rays, ultra sounds, blood tests and what seemed like an endless supply of morphine into my IV made for one eventful weekend. End result? Drum roll please......

Gall Bladder Attack.

What the heck does the gall bladder even do was my question! and what did I ever do to it to make it hate me so much!!!! Apparently, I am no longer allowed to binge eat when I come out of the village. BOO! And have to make sure that most of my foods are low-fat, at least for a while. What fun is that?!? I suppose i'll have to follow it or else I'll land myself right into gall bladder surgery. Lame.

But, at the moment, I am on the mend and can hopefully go home on Monday. Well see, as of now, they said it was ok, but we'll see if anything ridiculous happens this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed that my body stays normal!!!! I miss my village and would like to spend more than 2 nights there this month.