If you aren't interesting in my bowels don't read this

About 2 am the night before last, I awoke with my tummy rumbling in serious fashion and I had what I  used to call a Havana Omelet and now call a Kigali Omelet.  Probably just the heat or my IBS acting up I thought.  5 Omelets later I realized that I had genuine case of Traveler's Diarrhea and popped my first dose of Cipro.

I have prided myself over the last few years on travelling and trying to live as much as a local as possible except for my preference for running water and nice hotels.  Especially when you are visiting somewhere for an extended period of time you can't or shouldn't isolate yourself from the local culture.

On the contrary when I visit Ecuador with my medical mission, we eat only in our hotel and have lunch delivered to the hospital lest we catch something nasty.  There is some merit in this, you really can't do much surgery if a lot of your team is sitting on the porcelain throne.  Despite this on some years a couple of people got really sick despite following rigidly the dietary laws.  I usually blame the sandwiches the well-meaning Rotarians bring into the hospital.  I never eat them, who knows how many days old they are or whether the person who made them washes his hands ever.  On the other hand I have often passed up appetizing street meat for fear of letting down the team.  This ended last year when I brought down a colleague who faced with the abundance and variety of street meat was determined to sample each and every variety.  "You have to talk to him" said the team leader, "what happens if he gets sick?"  I didn't mention the Rotary sandwiches and just said, that I couldn't really control my colleague (which is true).

Being both male and an anaesthesiologist, I am to blame for much of what is wrong in the world and of course when you do get something like traveler's diarrhea you blame yourself.  I shouldn't have eaten at that restaurant, I should have used bottled water to brush my teeth, I should have exclusively drank beer, I should have cooked the meat I bought at the local market for 3.5 hours instead of 3.  Instead there is a fatalism that my time had come and I was probably lucky to have gone as long as I did.  So many ways you can be obsessive and still contract it.  For example you can shake hands with somebody and then touch your mouth, the person who opens your beer may not have clean hands, even the most expensive restaurant is no guarantee etc.

TD is natures way of telling you, "you do not belong here, you are not part of this environment and this is your punishment for your pretentiousness"

It is also sobering to think that many visitors to Africa and the tropics in general succumbed and died of  diarrheal diseases.  Of course when you compare this to the diseases (and the guns) we brought down with us, we are still ahead if you want to look at things that way.

Anyway by tomorrow the Cipro may be working and anyway even if I| have to wear a diaper I have going to see the gorillas this weekend.