I don't have malaria!

(I will add the pictures later.)

After two weeks in Tanzania I felt weird and tired and very hot. It is difficult to know if you feel feverish or not, because you sweat here anyway. I tried to analyze whether the heat was coming from outside (sun) or inside (me) but couldn't really tell. Finally I did the mirror test: if your eyes are sparkling, you are fine, if not, you have fever. The test result was that I had a fever. I didn't really believe that I could have malaria, because I hadn't been bitten by the mosquitoes at all (at least I hadn't noticed having being bitten), but decided to have a malaria test taken just in case - and just out of curiosity to see how do the hospitals work here. So I and one other feverish girl took a taxi to Saint Joseph's Hospital. It was a very simple but pretty place. You can see in the picture what the hospital's entry looked like.

At the reception I had to write my name, age, Soweto (the area where I live in Moshi) and "volunteer/i-to-i" on a blank A4 paper. Then the sister at the reception took us "in" to wait for the doctor. The place where we waited was actually an outside area in the middle of the hospital's corridors (see the picture) where you could hear the birds singing (lovely).

After a couple of minutes (yeep, no hours of waiting...) the doctor called me into his room. I went in, sat down and told him that I need a malaria test. The doctor wrote something on a piece of paper in Swahili, gave it to me and told me to go to the lab with it. I don't think that they have heard the word "privacy" in that hospital, because everything was done doors open other people hanging near or even next to you.

The lab was an experience. See the wooden bench and the table in the picture below?

Me and the other feverish girl sat next to each other on that bench and had our fingertips pricked with a scalpel. A couple of drops of blood were taken on a dusty glass slide and that was it. After half an hour waiting outside the doctor called me in and said: "Susanna, you don't have malaria", wrote something on an other piece of paper and told me to show it at the reception.

As I went to pay my visit to the reception I was charged 6000 Tanzanian shillings for the test and the doctor's consultation. It wasn't a lot (about 3.6 e), but the two Finnish nurse student's who work in the same hospital told me that the normal charge for a malaria test is 500 shillings. But what the heck, it is ok to charge 12 times more for mzungus, isn't it?

Just as an extra piece of information I want to tell you that based on the facts that the Finnish nurse student's told me, I wouldn't want anything else except a malaria test done in hospitals here. Anaesthesia is not used and people are basically tortured if something painful needs to be done. All the sterile instruments are expired and sometimes sterile instruments are taken out from the package and then put back there, as if it would have stayed sterile! I promise you, I will do my best not to get injured here!