December 19th, 2014 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »
Because I’m one of those people who get mosquito bites very easily, I have been determined since arriving in Cameroon to try to get as little to no mosquito bites. Malaria is something that I definitely do not want to have during my service as I often hear how it will make one person very miserable for several days.
For my family and friends outside of Cameroon who are not familiar with malaria, I’ll share some info to help you become better educated. Malaria is a parasitic disease that causes flu-like symptoms such as fever, vomiting, headaches and chills. The disease is commonly found in tropical and sub-tropical regions. It’s transmitted through mosquito bites. Mosquitos acquire malaria when biting people who already have malaria. Once a mosquito has bitten a person with malaria and then goes and bites a healthy person, that person gets malaria. Mosquitos that carry malaria bite people during only at night time. For most Cameroonians, because they’ve been exposed to malaria many times, they view malaria like as if it’s a flu – most are just sick for a few days. However, for pregnant women, children under five years old, people with HIV/AIDS and foreigners, they are in the highest risk for becoming seriously ill with malaria. If pregnant women become sick with malaria, they could face miscarriage. Children under five and foreigners are in a higher risk to face seizures, coma and/or death when becoming ill with malaria. They are in the high risk pool because their immune system has had very little to no exposure to malaria and not been well built to fight against it. This is why I, as a foreigner living in Cameroon, have to take every caution to prevent mosquito bites and from becoming very ill. I have to take a malaria prophylaxis everyday, use a bug spray when I’m out at night and sleep with a mosquito net. Malaria prophylaxis does not prevent us from getting malaria. It only makes us less sicker.
When I first arrived at my apartment at my post, I noticed that hanging the mosquito net with hooks in the ceiling would not be possible. The ceiling is made of concrete, which meant that drilling screws in would be extremely difficult. So, when I spoke to a post mate about the issue, she said that another volunteer advised her to get posts made of bamboos. After finding out from my counterpart where to find a place where I could get posts made of bamboos, I went to a lovely little bamboo shop that is next to Prescafe, a cafe on Commercial Avenue owned by a woman from Switzerland, in Bamenda. I met two lovely Cameroonian gentlemen at the shop and explained to them what I exactly needed. They said no problem and had it done within few days.
Once it was done, they gave me a set of cut up bamboos and nails and directions on how to put it together. They couldn’t just hand me the post all put together because it would not fit through the doors and narrow hallway of my apartment. So, I put it together by myself in my apartment, and it was a nightmare. It was like building an Ikea furniture, meaning that the directions were unclear, and keeping all the parts attached was difficult. Once I finally just almost got it put together, it collapsed. Once it collapsed, I thought in my head of a new design idea that would be transportable through the doors and narrow hallway and not require me to put the bamboos together. I pulled out a note pad and drew the new design. I took all the bamboos back to the shop and showed the two Cameroonian gentlemen my new proposed design.
They agreed to work with my new proposed design and finished making my bamboo stands within a week. It came out beautiful. It was very easy to transport to my apartment and set up. All I had to do was put each stand at each corner of my bed and then attach the strings from the net to each of the stand. I have been able to sleep like a princess since getting this new mosquito net holder set up.
