I almost escaped my monthly Peace Corps Service tradition this month. We are just shy of April and my unwelcomed ritual hit me like a ton of bricks. I got sick- again! Like clockwork, I get sick once a month. I was able to skip this awful tradition for a few of the 11 months I’ve been living here. However, about one week per month, I am in bed all day attempting to recover from sort of illness. I get sick so much that even my coworkers and I started joking about it.
In January, right before I got my sinus infection, I made a joke we should make bets on what illness I would contrive next. I imagined a calendar in which people would write the name of a disease and the week I would fall ill. They laughed, but I was half serious. I felt like I had to insert some sort of comic relief into my misery. The calendar didn’t happen, but the discussions continued.In fact, one of my coworkers came up to me last week and said, “Rawan, you have not gotten sick this month.” I replied, “I thought the same thing! But there are a few days left in March, so who knows?” God knows, because a couple of days later, here I am, sick with an undesirable cold.
This cold started just like any other. The first sign was a very sore throat. It hurt to swallow, regardless of how much liquids I consumed. No amount of tea was alleviating that soreness. On Monday morning, I woke up and I felt completely sick. I didn’t have the energy to get out of bed, so I didn’t. I texted my boss and my main counterpart and told them I wasn’t coming into work. What is wonderful about Georgians is that they actually believe you when you tell them that you are sick. The only thing my boss told me was, “have a speedy recovery and let me know if you need anything.” I’m very lucky that he is compassionate and helpful. Our culture in the United States is not typically so forgiving. We have the tendency to be work-aholics. We work even when are sick and then possibly infecting everyone. I believe that our lack of government protected paid sick leave is to blame.
For example, like many other college students, I worked in restaurants to help pay for my university degree. One day I contracted some sort of stomach flu a couple of hours before my shift. I knew that my boss wouldn’t believe me if I had simply called in sick literally right before my shift. Sure, I would be excused, but I would get “jokes” the next day that I probably just partied too much the night before. So, I had my mother drive me to work since I was too sick to drive. I told her to wait in the car because I knew I would be excused from my shift. Sure enough, the second I walked in, my boss said, “You’re late.” I didn’t even respond, I just ran straight to the bathroom to go puke. When I came out, he apologized and said, “You are sick, that is why you are late.” I nodded and he let me go home. American bosses need hard-core evidence. Because if you can’t work with something mild, then you are weak and not a loyal employee. That simple.
However, the beauty of the Peace Corps is that we don’t have a defined number of sick days in a traditional sense. I’m sure that by now I would have been fired from my job if I got sick like this in America. In the Peace Corps, if you are sick for more than a continuous 45 days, then you may get medically separated. The key word here is “continuous.” So, me getting sick one week out of the month still qualifies me to continue my service. My coworkers are very understanding, because most of the time, I still go to work sick like the American I am. In December, when I got the flu, I walked to work with a fever in the snow. Dumbest mistake ever. If that happens to you, just call in sick. Don’t walk up the snowy hill with a fever. Justin also had the flu at the same time. So fending for ourselves was not fun either. Gosh, I really hated those two weeks.
However, it has been difficult. By far, the biggest challenge in the Peace Corps is my immune system. Normally, it functions well in the United States, but apparently, Georgia and my immune system are frien-enemies. Three weeks they are bffs, and one week they hate each other. Let me clear, that one week is brutal. I got food poisoning twice in Georgia, only 6 weeks apart. The first time was in August and the second in early October. I’m not talking about a slight upset stomach, here. I’m talking about where I have a slight fever, curled up in the fetal position, moaning in extreme pain, and can’t eat anything or hold anything for FIVE DAYS. I literally treated myself to a “steak” (it was a piece of meat really, but to me it was a steak) to celebrate when the episode was over.
Regardless, I sick so often now and it has become a fear. If anyone coughs in my general direction, my first thought is “get the hell away from me.” Why? Because I have $hit to do and I don’t feel like being out cold for a week. I also thought to myself, “Am I the only one like this?” Well, the answer is a mixture between yes and no. Some volunteers have had it worse. Some volunteers haven’t even gotten sick. However, a few had similar experiences. A couple of them told me that their first year of service was full of illnesses, but the second year was healthier. In my imagination, once I hit the one year mark, I will be rid of all illnesses and I will be healthy! Logically, I know this is hard to predict, but I don’t care. I need some glimmer of hope. I need a slice of faith.
