Highland Two-Step
12/1/2004 2:16AM (12:16PM Addis Ababa)
Everything in Addis Ababa is named Highland. They have Highland Queen Whiskey, Highland Springs Water, and of course the Highland two-step, which in typical Lo Fat Mo fashion I have contracted. For those more delicate souls out there, I suggest you turn away or go read something pleasant. My famously strong stomach has failed me for the first time that I can remember. It has saved me in countless harsh environments where the water or the food were not fit for human consumption, but here in relatively benign circumstances, I am thrown for a loop. It started last night with a late dinner with the folks here at home. Immediately afterwards, of course, I leapt to my feet and retired to the littlest room for much longer than I had anticipated. My stomach has not been settled fully since I've been here, but certainly not anything to write home about (you'll note that I literally did not write home about it), but things were getting ridiculous. I felt like a bubbling cauldron, or a volcanic crater, with huge bubbles of magma growing and then spattering loudly against the walls of the caldera - or in this case, my stomach.
The gastrointestinal distress woke me up early this morning, and kept me up and reading Wired's defense of the nearly indefensible K. Eric Drexler. You know things are bad when reading Wired is your last tenuous grasp of normalcy. As I write these words now, my stomach is making noises that I have rarely heard, and I feel slightly nauseated. I hope this is nothing, because with all my morbid thoughts of the past couple of weeks, I would hate to die like this. Better on the field of battle with Valkyries singing my name.
The other thing that had me awake earlier than I expected was the clatter of birds on our roof. After spending a little bit of time in Addis Ababa one quickly discovers that every house has a corrugated zinc roof. From the second floor of our house, or the windows of a hotel restaurant one can look out over the majority of the city and see the gleam of that material as far as the eye can see. In fact, one gets the impression that they use this material for everything. The advantage of the zinc roofing is the sound that it makes when there is any rain - a gentle but insistent pattering which is perfect around the time when one is turning in. It is just the perfect sound to lull you to sleep. Like everything else, though, the corrugated zinc roof has it's disadvantages, namely the sound of anything other than rain on the roof. Birds particularly make quite a racket, either walking or just flapping their wings. The clatter is loud and startling, and if you didn't know any better, you'd think that there were children up there running around. Pitter-patter of little feet, my ass.
Today was also World AIDS Day. Usually this wouldn't be a big deal to me, since I am an insensitive clod and anyway I don't know anyone with the disease, but around here I've been paying quite a bit of attention. This is mainly due to the fact that there are billboards everywhere cautioning against the disease and the behavior that puts one most at risk. We all know that Africa is currently the site of the fiercest battles against AIDS, but you don't really know how bad it is by just watching the news or reading about it. It's apparently a pandemic, and there are infection rates upwards of 20% in some areas! Needless to say I was shocked to find this out, especially when one begins to thinking of the number of people this entails. So the Ethiopian government and people are understandably worried, and laudably active in their efforts against the disease. This, in particular, as I compare to the Sudan where the disease itself is swept under the rug, and the scope of infection is known to but a few doctors. My cousin, himself a doctor, used to go on mobile clinics to the rural areas in Sudan and came back with horror stories to tell. The degree of government inaction and societal blindness was harrowing, he told me, and the numbers of the infected were stunningly high. Add the stigma that comes with the disease and it's assumed cause (sex, in short, and probably the illicit kind) and you are looking at an intractable public health issue.
Meanwhile, in Ethiopia you can actually see very active efforts against the disease. I was surprise to see, the other day, a policeman with a red AIDS ribbon on. While this may not seem remarkable to all you folks Stateside, where even obesity has a colorful ribbon associated with it, it is quite significant here on the "Dark Continent". Overall their efforts seem to be taking hold here, which means there is some hope overall. though as I have noted previously, this is a very different place than the Sudan.