How ironic that amid my work on local healthcare stories I found myself a patient yesterday at the public hospital. This town, Dili, is a rampant cesspool of disease, and in my 6 weeks here I’ve fallen ill at least five or six times already. The fever grew wild yesterday afternoon and when friends spotted me eyes glassed-over and near fainting on the beach I was rushed (quite against my will!) to the local emergency room.
Every bed was filled; it was a horrid caucophony of pain and suffering. When I arrived, there was a newborn baby to my left having various needles jammed into it. The teenage boy to my right was on oxygen and non-responsive - teary eyed family members looking on. I spoke breifly with a doctor about my own pain and fever, when somebody grabbed my legs and slid them out of the way. The newborn baby next to me had likewise been removed from the bed and a large man with multiple machete-inflicted lacerations hauled in - I struggled to repress the urge to vomit at the mere sight of it. Around the corner a man was shrieking in pain - screaming, crying out as if in a torture chamber. Which is maybe what it was. Or simply normal life, for those outside of our western bubble.
Eye-opening experience to say the least. Happy to be resting up in my friend, Craig’s, little beachside villa at the moment. A brief respite from the reality of life in the undeveloped world.
As for my diagnosis? Still not sure. My tests for Dengue have thankfully come back negative. One down, who knows how many more to go…For now, Tylenol, lots and lots of tylenol….
I’m still at sea.
This post is from my first voyage, sailing alone around the world from 2009 to 2015. These days I live aboard El Dorado in France and send dispatches from the boat.
Get the dispatches on Substack →
Or get real mail from the boat: the Foreign Correspondence Club.