Amoebic dysentery? Dengue Fever? Malaria? Whatever my ailment, I was surely destined to die in Nigeria. While sipping sugar-free Red Bull and checking my email, my stomach began to churn. The sensation was familiar, and I decided I could control the urge until I finished surfing the internet. My body had different plans. I suddenly felt like a rock band was playing in my stomach–someone was having a wild party that I had just been invited to. Tearing my ipod from my ears, I ran to the bathroom, barely making it in time. The bathroom was now my sanctuary; I had diaharrea.
The first apartment that my mom and I shared had two bedrooms and one bath. Only five years old, this arrangement suited me just fine, especially on days when I couldn’t quite unbutton my pants. All was well until the fated day we both had bubble guts. However, my experience of two people with loose bowls rotating on and off one working comode was luxury compared to having to repeatedly flush a week’s worth of meals with buckets of water by hand. By noon, each of my four trips to the bathroom had lasted between 15 to 20 minutes. Death was certain whether the result of disease or embarrassment.
In my sanctuary, I was left to ponder what I had eaten to cause my condition. Rice, something spicy I didn’t know the name of, something brown and mushy I didn’t know the name of, more rice, and fruit from a hawker (roadside vendor). Process of elimination led me to believe that the unanamed dishes and fruit, which had probably been rinsed in water resembling sewage water in the US, were the most likely culprits. Damn my need to try new things! I had poisoned myself and was now surely destined to die in Nigeria.
The phases of my life have all evolved from my fascination with foreign entities. When I was little I wanted to be Punky Brewster (a fantasy I’ve been hesitant to let go), around Middle School I would have happily morphed into anyone who had cooler parents, high school brought on my Caribbean/Rastafarian phase, and in college I alternated between wishing I was continental African and white middle class. My feelings of inadequacy facilitated this madness, disallowing me to appreciate my own uniqueness. Although I no longer wish to be anyone else, I recognize that my decision to eat fruit from the side of an unpaved road is the result of an unhealthy urge to transform myself into the ways and practices of a foreign people. The human body recognizes and expels foreign substances, like a security alarm, it knows when something doesn’t belong. As my body rejected unfamiliar cuisine, Nigeria symbolically rejected me as well. I am welcomed and appreciated as a tourist, but my role here is only that of an outsider.
By 2:00 I remembered my family and friends and mustered the stregnth to pull myself off the toilet and not die in Nigeria. I walked to a local pharmacy and faintly mouthed the words “Pepto-Bismol”. The sixteen year old “pharmacist” had no idea what I was talking about, and I reprhased that I needed something for an upset stomach. She asked me if I had been purging. Quickly I searched for the translation, “purging…purging…purging…Oh, vomiting!” I told her that I had not, prompting her to reach behind the counter and hand me two packs of pills–no prescription necessary. I left with metronidazole, tetracycline, and dosage instructions that sounded like either two in the evening or after eating (the accent still gives me problems).
All alone with diarrhea, unfamiliar prescription drugs that I had gotten without consulting someone who had fancy degrees on the wall, and limited meal choices, I felt homesick and more American than ever before. Today’s lesson? Trying to be someone else will give you bubble guts and successfully reaffirm who you really are.
