In the middle of the night at my interpreter's house, I woke up to go to the bathroom. To get to the toilet from the bedroom where I was sleeping required approximately 30 steps, perhaps a few more if I stumbled in the dark house. Not a terribly far distance……but I soon learned that distances can grow with time and state of mind and body.
So I woke up and headed for the toilet. I had been regaled the entire day with more food than I thought I could possibly eat. At each house we had visited in the villages we had been offered (practically forced) to have at least a large snack, often a meal. I figure I had probably eaten about 5 meals. So waking up in the middle of the night, I wasn’t worried, I figured I had just eaten too much and that my morning constitutional was just a bit impatient. I went back to bed and about 20 minutes later, had to return to the toilet. Still, I wasn’t worried. Eating spicy food, lots of oil and sweets, it was NORMAL that there would be a haste to my digestive system that was not always there. (read: eby is in denial) I went back to bed and tried to go back to sleep. And all of a sudden, it seemed that there was a chill in the air. I looked around for a blanket to add to the sheet that was covering me, but no luck. I didn’t feel quite desperate enough to wake someone up to give me a blanket. So I laid in bed and shivered. Literally. For almost three hours I laid there, vaguely aware of the passing time and letting my body move at will to keep me warm. And slowly, slowly, I started to realize that I wasn’t feeling very well, and that I might be sick. But I kept telling myself that once I got a nice warm blanket, I would be right as rain. Optimism that I would later realize was evidence of just how out of my mind I was.
By 6, when others woke in the house, I did finally ask Amma (the word for mother in Kannada, and what she insisted I call her) for a blanket and stumbled back to bed. At this point, trips to the toilet were about once an hour, at least, and I was fairly certain I had a fever. And everyone in the household knew that they had a sick stranger on their hands.
Soon the theories of what was wrong with me, as well as the attendant remedies, started to accumulate.
First: you must have been in the sun too long yesterday, so why not take some tea this morning and take rest? (Rest was clearly all I was capable of doing, but I had a feeling it was a bit more than just the sun.)
Second: Ah, your stomach is not used to spicy Indian food, so to settle it you should drink a cup of tea mixed with ghee (clarified butter.) (Wow, that sounded revolting... luckily I was so weak I couldn't show my honest reaction to such a suggestion.)
Third: Someone in the villages put the evil eye on you, and we should exorcise it with smoke from an oil lamp that is waved in a circle three times in front of you. (This was eventually tried... I figured it couldn't hurt, unlike the previous remedy.)
And of course, as time progressed, and I only seemed to get worse, the remedies became more and more insistent. And the offer (threat) to bring a doctor became louder. I have a great memory of lying in bed, hardly able to sit up, with the entire family in the room arguing in Kannada about what to do with/for me. The reason that it is a great memory is that in my feverish state I believed that I could actually understand what they were saying. HA!
I had oral rehydration salts with me (ESSENTIAL traveling companion) but the bulk of my first aid kit, including my emergency antibiotics, were back at my hotel room (dumb, dumb, dumb). My interpreter offered to go to my hotel room and pick up some stuff, which I agreed to. When he returned I was able to take my temperature....over 103F (39.5C). Hmmmm, not good, really not good. Though it did explain some of the crazy dreams I was having every time I closed my eyes.
And this is where I would like to say that I am happy to know that the body and mind somehow become incredibly efficient at doing what is necessary to survive. Not that I was that far gone, don't worry, but looking back on everything, I realize that I was remarkably level-headed about finding the help I needed. Case in point: I didn't call my parents. In fact, it didn't even enter my mind to do so, because I subconsciously knew that it wouldn't help, it would only make them and myself more worried. Instead, I called my supervisor, who was in India at the time, and asked to talk to his wife who is also on my research committee and who has a lot of experience being sick in inopportune places (like a remote village in Peru). I knew she would be level-headed, and that she was. She talked me through taking emergency antibiotics, even calling the McGill travel clinic to ask questions for me. She gave me a few crucial symptoms I should watch out for (“I don't mean to scare you, but you should tell the family taking care of you that they should take you to the hospital if you find can't move.”) She was great.
But at 8 pm that evening, my fever was inching up again, and I finally let the family bring a doctor. The doctor prescribed a different, heavy-hitting antibiotic, and a few other things. And I accepted. He asked if I wanted to go to the hospital and as vehemently as possible I said NO. So he said, “Fine, but if your fever is not down in 12 hours, that is where you are going.” But very fortunately, 12 hours later, my fever was indeed down, I had slept for 6 hours straight (no bathroom trips!) and I felt I was out of the woods.
I spent the next three days with my interpreter's family, recovering under the wonderful ministrations of Amma, Appa, Tungi (word for younger sister in Kannada), and Toma (word for younger brother). The doctor had told the family to feed me a lot of tender coconut water and when I could eat solid food again, to start with gunji (overcooked rice with lots of salt). These two items were quite possibly the most amazingly delicious things I have ever tasted. And what a blessing to be able to sit up and eat them, ever so slowly. Nothing like getting sick to remind us of how wonderful it is to be healthy.
Reading this over, I realize that I have made an attempt to dramatize a rather unpleasant, but in the end, not terribly dramatic or unique experience. In itself, getting sick was definitely yucky, uncomfortable, and for a few short moments, even frightening. But overall, it was just getting sick and it was accompanied with getting better, and therefore not really a momentous occasion. But that is where my story so far falls short of explaining the real experience I had in those four days. The real lesson I learned was founded in my environment and in the development of human connections across barriers of language and culture. I fell ill while staying in a house of people who until then, were relative strangers and who are now, I am privileged to say, no longer such. Before falling ill I had felt uncomfortable and alien; felt that I was an imposition. I had been having a hard time adjusting to being cooked for and served and housed and welcomed so warmly, hugely, without hesitation everywhere I went that weekend. Meals were served to me and the men first, and only after I had finished eating did the women, the amazing cooks, eat. And I felt I had to reject that part of my cultural surroundings; I was always trying to at least carry my plate into the kitchen, to somehow help out, to somehow not be the guest that I was. I felt frustrated that I was put on such a pedestal, hungering angrily to be treated as an “equal” and regular human being.
But once I was sick, some rigidity in me, this frustration that was not allowing me to accept who I was and where I was, somewhere it broke. And at the same time, my presence as a guest was also shed, as I became somehow, just for three days perhaps, a habitual part of the household. At 8 am and 8 pm, a little before my scheduled antibiotics times, Amma or Tungi would come and ask me if I needed anything, and it took me a while to realize that they knew I needed to eat with the pills, and so they were wondering what they could prepare for me. I felt so lucky to be there, to be taken care of in this generous way. As I felt better I was able to sit and talk with Amma and Tungi, the two who were home during the day with me, and even watch a movie in Kannada with them, laughing along and trying not to make them translate every sentence. I felt privileged to really become a part of family and daily routines, even if only for three days, and even if their routines had been disrupted due to my presence. Being sick forced me to just be there, to be there to see things like brother and sister arguing with each other and Amma telling them to shush. See Appa leave for work, and then come home later. Hear the sounds from the kitchen and walk to the bathroom for the fortieth time with no shame.
Each time I said thanks, they said “no, no, formalities are only for strangers, but you are family.” And being sick, being vulnerable in that way, perhaps does make it easier for people to accept you as just another human being, as part of family in a larger sense of the word. I was no longer defined primarily by being a foreigner, but rather by being ill and incapacitated, which is a great equalizing force. And so in the end, I feel lucky to have fallen ill in that particular household at that moment in time; it would have taken me much longer to listen to my surroundings if I hadn't. I learn each day.
This is what I look like as I play badminton at the court in the phd students quarters. Yes, I might look very attentive, but that does not mean I am very successful at actually hitting the birdie. But the other students humour me.
A visitor to my room one morning! Hanging out on my only kitchen equipment. Sorry Annie, no collecting this one, I just left her alone and she was gone by evening.%5B1%5D.JPG)
Yes, I am indeed wearing a saree. Which is a lot of work to wear, but luckily I had about 5 different people help me get it on. They kept correcting each others mistakes. But it was a pleasure to wear such an elegant outfit for an evening. My colleagues from CISED are with me in the photo, also dressed up for the night. 
What the student dining hall looks like during our "candlelight" dinners (i.e. when there is no power.) Very romantic.
Pinning up mango leaves over the doorframe for Lakshmi festival on August 15th. Mango leaves are hung over the door frame for most major festivals and left there until the next festival. I was visiting my colleague in Mysore for the holiday (which was also Indian Independence Day).
