Approximately 1/3 of the student population here has been puking their brains out and then some. Those who previously complained about constipation ...have stopped.
Thank God I have a terrace with a sink and buckets. I severely lucked out with that one.
The two phrases which have characterized the Rabati student experience as of the past few days have been, "violently ill," and, "private hell." Twenty of the sixty students have gotten sick. And when I say sick, I mean Morocco doesn't let you remember what it was ever like to be well again.
What's so scary about being sick here is that A. You don't speak the language so you can't tell anyone exactly how sick you are B. You don't read the language so you can't read medicinal warnings or ingredients, and C. There's a common sense factor (to be addressed in the next post) that doesn't equate to US common sense. The Moroccan common sense turns out to be a series of fictitious medicinal lies that were probably passed down as having some truth from hundreds of generations of sage burning and goat slaughtering. It's scary, especially when I began hearing how many people were going to the hospital. Even one of our program assistants is sick.
My friend, Paulene, lost her vision for about three hours during the night, and that's the worst case I've heard so far. Jenna, another student, needs to be in the hospital for at least five to eight days. Insane!
We're all trying to find the common denominator, but the only thing we know is that the food poisoning/potential bacteria is from Fes. Though apparently every time they go to this one hotel in Fes all the students get sick...hmmm. Putting two and two together finally?
Yet another comical note to this: the past few days are the only few days in last week that we've been out of toilet paper. Luckily I took some from the hotel. Thank you, hotel in Fes, for providing me with a tragic sickness and almost backhanded remedy.
Blah,
Raleigh
I hope you get to feeling better soon.
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