Confinement

Last weekend was pretty miserable in the Parker household. Ben's vomiting and his fever which crept past 40'C added to the general air of pestilence in the Parker's place! Esther, then Liz and then Joel had already been keeping the home thermometer busy earlier in the week, as they one by one succumbed to a nasty virus blowing around Dodoma. High fever, a hacking cough, nausea, runny nose and sneezing were the symptoms that we were all displaying.
On the Tuesday before, things seemed at their worst, when Liz had to take to her bed with chills and fevers, as a bottle of water, inhalers, strepsil tablets, lemsip, paracetamol tablets and the thermometer all jostled for space on her bedside table. Esther was tucked up in her bed in the next-door bedroom, as a miserable Joel and a very bored Ben wandered sadly around the unusually quiet house.
Andrew, meanwhile, was safely installed several hundred miles away in Arusha, having left early Monday morning and not due home again until Thursday afternoon! It was a tough few days for me in Dodoma, coping with being sick and yet having to keep going- we still needed meals, I still needed to wash up before the ants and cockroaches took over my kitchen, I still had to get up at 06:20 to get Ben off to school on the 07:15 school bus, with his packed lunch ready. I still needed to change Joel's nappies, care for a sick Esther and then a sick Joel as he became ill on Wednesday night with his temperature suddenly soaring past 40'C... The curtains were drawn, the door remained closed and the Parkers and their germs stayed within the 4 walls of our Tanzanian home: confined indoors for over a week!
When my children are ill here in Africa, it can make life seem tough as I worry. When our children are ill and I am also ill, it is a bit harder. When our children are ill and I am ill and Andrew is away, it is that bit harder! So last week was not the best week we have had in Dodoma!
Here in Tanzania, the onset of a high fever always awakes worries about malaria. So as a precaution, we always test for malaria whenever the temperature starts climbing past 39'C. Out comes the malaria home- testing kit:

Out comes the paraphernalia to start the testing process:

 
Two very hot, young brothers sit together on the sofa, relieved that the worst of the testing process is over- the jabbing of their heels with a sharp metal needle, to issue the necessary blood for the test:

The test starts to analyse the results of the blood and will show up any signs of malaria that could be present in the bloodstream:

Thankfully, the 4 of us who got ill and who were tested for malaria all had negative results :-). It is always a relief to be able to rule out malaria!
Despite Andrew's absence, our neighbours were very thoughtful- with friends dropping off DVDs to entertain the invalids, dropping off cakes to cheer us up, even very kindly cooking a wonderful meal for us one evening! Another friend took Ben for an afternoon earlier in the week, when he was still healthy and then took Esther another day when she was recovered and the other 3 of us were just getting back on our feet.We may have been confined for a while, but we were grateful to be still be very much part of a caring community here in Dodoma!