It’s the age of Aquarius, age of Aquariuh-us … Aquarius! Get that song in your head and then substitute Malaria for Aquarius and you have the latest catchy tune that I’ve been singing lately (along with ‘Sweaty Crack’ sang to the famous Pheobe classic ‘Smelly Cat’ from the hit TV show Friends – TMI?) . Malaria… Malaria. Fortunately, it’s not because any of us have Malaria right now, but we’ve sure been joking enough about the day when, not if, one of us is diagnosed. Luckily – we know exactly the drug to take if we get it … Coartem. Recommended to us by our pal David, the American writer in Dar – who has had malaria 7 times in his life, including during the week we met him. In fact, it will be David that we blame when we are diagnosed as it was his idea to take us out for a drink at a bar in Dar that led to our demise (kidding, David – but it is your fault! haha)
So, we were just finished with our Malai Kofta and Vegetable Biriani (hostel is run by Indians) when the seats were being cleared out from under us – or so it felt – that we decided to move on… too early to go to bed but with limited options for a place to grab a glass of wine or a beer, David suggested a bar he knew of – an outdoor bar. We were hopeful and excited as we’d looked for a drink a few times prior only to find that most places don’t serve alcohol. We strolled out of the bustle and into a little side alley – very much an alley with a dead end at a dive bar with an enormous drop down screen showing a World Cup match between Mexico and Argentina. Los Africanos in the bar were all cheering for Argentina. We were cheering for Mexico, but really doing a lot more talking that watching.
As we sat and settled in, I was urged to pull my feet up under me by the sight of a healthy rat scurrying down the wall opposite me and into an open window in that neighboring building … too bad for those tenants. Luckily for them, their visitor came and went with enough frequency to give them some privacy. Eww! Conversation flowed quite nicely for a couple of hours, interrupted only by Argentina goals for which the rest of the bar assaulted us with bubucetas – those annoying horn toys that soccer fans love to blow.
Later that night in our room, Hadley freaked out when she looked down at her legs and realized she had served as the local fare that evening for the entire mosquito population of Dar es Salaam. The next day, upon inspection we discovered that Hadley had become similar in skin design to a Dr. Seuss character – someone do tell me which I might be thinking of.
When I took the picture of her little legs and froggy feet we burst out laughing – quite the image. Then, that night when I took a shower, we discovered that there were two types of mosquitoes at that bar in Dar – those that prefer chicken bones and those that prefer the fat of the bacon. My white buns were speckled with over 20 red spots – mosquito bites all over! To each his own as Hadley and I would carry the evidence. In all seriousness, she is on the Cadillac of Malaria meds and I am on the thrift store variety antibiotic prophylactic so we should hopefully be ok – but our meds will certainly be put to the test.