Runny Tummy

I got a little sick last week. Sick as in runny tummy. That is what they call diarrhea here. And, I have to say, I like saying runny tummy much more than the D word. When I lived in Accra, I would have runny tummy...I don't want to say often, but enough that it wasn't a big deal when it did come around. In Accra, I would eat street food a lot-which is one of the reasons I got runny tummy.  I learned to love street food! It is super cheap and, they are all over the place and convenient. You can buy different things. You can buy jollof rice, fried rice or plain rice with meat like goat, beef, fish (though not considered meat) or chicken. You can buy kenkey, banku, or fufu with a tomato stew or sauce or a soup with meat. You can buy fried or roasted plantains or yams. You can buy black eyes peas which go yummy-yummy with the plantains. The sad problem is...wait...are most problems sad?, or do I just say problem and you figure out that it is sad because most problems are sad? But a problem could be choosing between two good things and there would be no sad in that. Right? ANYWHOOO-- the problems is, many of these vendors do their cooking right in their little kiosk and they don't have running water. That, of course, could cause a lot of issues. There are no FDA regulations on chop bars/street food eateries so you just take the risk and sometimes (sigh) it is so worth it.But in Tamale, I haven't been eating street food. I haven't even gone to one chop bar in months. How did I get sick? Many other reasons came to mind. During my uncomfortableness I went over where I went, how many times I washed my hands, if I ate meat-even meat I bought and cooked in my house, who knows how long it was sitting outside before I bought it. And that may make you ask the question : Your meat is outside? Yep. The butchers buy big chunks of a cow and go to their kiosk and sell it. Sometimes their place is just a table with a sun roof thingy on it. Other times they are screened in areas about 5 feet by 10 feet. They usually have big straw fans so they can blow away any flies that come round. So, meat by itself could be the culprit. I did buy some pork a couple weeks ago that let me know after I ate it, that it was bad, but not serious, not like last week's sickness. Last week's sickness lasted for days. As in, I even had a dream about it. Not cool.If we do get a stomach sort of bug usually we wait a couple days hoping it will just pass, like mine did with the pork. But this one hung on. So, finally I called up my nurse, explained my symptoms and she told me what to go and take. I had a friend go to the pharmacy and buy it. One lovely thing here is we don't need doctor's prescriptions. We just go to the pharmacy and tell them what we want and then buy it. SOOOOO WONDERFUL!!! The nurse did ask me if I ate out and I could honestly say, "No". Maybe it was the apple I bought that I did not wash (I was just so hungry I needed something). Maybe I drank bad water. Maybe I sweat all the water out of me and was dehydrated really, really bad, ok, that doesn't really make sense. Maybe the food my friend cooked for me wasn't good-but none of them got sick. Maybe...maybe...I just get lucky like this :)So I took the medicine and within 12 hours I was feeling back to my normal self. Before that, I refused to have a pity party. There was a day where I just couldn't go out because I had some cramping but other days, though I felt uncomfortable, I went out. I just made sure to visit places that had a toilet around, or time it as best as I could, to get back home. Silly things, but very important things to think about!!UPDATE ON THE HOUSE:We got the keys yesterday. We started filling my car with boxes and taking a load over and then in the evening we had a friend with a pickup and he took some big things like the refrigerator. The water is not officially hooked up yet by the city but we have a tank full. We will wait a few more days for that to get hooked up and in the mean time continue to take things over. Our projected sleep-over-there date is Saturday. We also want to dust and mop it and do a serious prayer walk thru every room and to every corner of the outside walls. Maybe next week I will send some finished and move in pics.