The world according to me

I just spent an entire week at home. Some sort of flue, I guess. I went to the hospital, one of the best in town, but doctors here don’t usually tell you what you have, less you insist. I had been waiting for over an hour, my head felt like a water melon (ripe). I was just happy to see the man in white. I didn’t insist.

Consultation came in for about 150.000 Cedis, that is approximately 18 Dollars, maybe 13 Euros. The drugs were about the same amount. Last time, when I came down with Malaria, I had to spend about 1.5 Million Cedis. 130 Euros for three days in hospital, food, drugs and 24-7 care.

While all this seems like petty amounts of money, it is quite a lot when you compare it to average Ghanaian wages. A teacher might earn two to four million a month, a journalist a bit less. Falling sick is a very costly thing for them. A carrier boy working in the markets in town makes about 30.000 Cedis a day, barely four dollars. If he falls sick, he either has to rely on family, get through without any help or die.

There is of course free treatment for the needy in some hospitals, even in the country side. But the drugs, you have to pay for. When you get a disease like Malaria that means you are in for a hard time. The test is simple and inexpensive; it is whether or not you take the medication prescribed that makes the difference. Or let’s say it like this, whether you can afford to take it.

True, a number of Ghanaians have developed a partial resistance to the parasite. They still get it, but it is like a severe flue. They vomit, they have fever and all, but they don’t succumb to it.

Still, Malaria is the number one killer in Africa. More than a million people a year perish; it is more deadly than AIDS if you wish. The ones that die are the new born, the sick, the malnourished – all those that don’t have enough resilience to fight the disease. They die. Just like this.

Since I had Malaria, I can more easily detect if someone suffers from it. With Malaria comes a very special sort of apathy, a feeling of freezing to death even in the blazing midday sun, dazzling headaches.

Being aware of this is like going through town and seeing things you are used to but all of sudden they have a new meaning. Why is this beggar not begging anymore, just hanging around staring into the void? Why would some sleep in the full tropical sun wearing thick woolen clothes? Than you get paranoid. You see it everywhere. How can these people live with such a thread? But you get used to it. That is the way of the world, just another plague to be dealt with.

In a book I read something that was maybe meant as a tranquillizer, but it didn’t make me feel too comfortable. The author said that as long as HIV, the AIDS-Virus, does not survive inside a mosquito, things aren’t that bad for Africa.