Eyes.

Last night, Kenz and I went to sleep around midnight, staying up as we read books for leisure, knowing that our class today didn't start until 3:30pm. We hoped to catch up on some sleep and wanted to sleep the morning away (which is usually a pretty difficult feat with all of the ruckuses in and around our hostel).

Around 4:30am, I woke up, squeezing and itching my eyes, applying pressure in hopes of alleviating the striking pain. At first, I thought it might have been just a dream, but it wasn't. It felt like needles and pins were literally being pushed into my eyeballs. I tried making sense of the pain, amidst my half-asleep disillusionment, and I didn't understand why my eyes ached so badly.

I racked my brain, picking it for any clues or causes as to why my eyes would be so irritated. After a few considerations, the only thing I could remember was something Thomas (one of our Ghanaian program leaders) had told me at breakfast during our first week here.

I asked Thomas how you knew if you got Malaria. "What are the symptoms? The signs? Will you feel it? How will you know?" "Everyone's body reacts differently," he said," although there are some common symptoms." He went on to explain that the first sign, for him (he cannot even count the number of times he has gotten Malaria in his life; it's obviously really common in Africa), was a sharp pain in his eyes, especially when he looked to the far left and to the far right. I made a mental note to myself, hoping I would remember his words and recognize this if my eyes ever began to ache.

I laid back down, after splashing cold water into my eyes, and wetted a piece of mangled toilet paper to put over my eyes, praying that God might alleviate the pain, and hoping to catch a few more zzzz's before daybreak. After about an hour or so, I finally fell back asleep.

When I woke up this morning, my eyes were slightly glued shut, but after splashing them with water, most of the pain dissapated. And so far, I DON'T have Malaria (Mom and Dad, and all my other relatives and friends--please don't worry--I just feel like I should blog about what I'm experiencing--all of the ups and downs and close-calls, but I'm staying healthy and Malaria IS treatable here, just an "FYI"). Every day, I have made it a point to coat myself with bug spray (with a deet percentage of at least 40%) and I have taken my Malarone every single night, as a means of prevention.

Then, this morning when I went to my usual fruitstand at the nightmarket, (if you're confused, we call it the nightmarket even in the middle of the day)I wondered why Linda, Ya's (the lady who runs the stand) daughter, seemed so weak and much less perky than she was last night. I asked her if she was okay, and she sort of muttered in a raspy voice, "I am not well." I asked her if she had Malaria, and believe it or not, she did. I couldn't believe she was hard at work, despite Malaria.