Malaria?

It’s almost 7:00am on my last morning in Ghana and I thought I’d recap before flying home.
The stay in Elmina didn’t end well. I woke up feeling very sick so we didn’t go to Kakum National Park. Instead we decided to head back to Accra on the 11am bus instead of the 4pm. It was horrible. The guy who checks the bus tickets wanted a bribe to let us on that bus so we went to the counter and changed our tickets to the 11am departure. He wasn’t happy about that. Then he wouldn’t let me on the bus. Supposedly it’s because I had a middle seat. He was so rude. He shoved me out of the way when I tried to get on. Anyway, we made it onto the bus (and I didn’t have a middle seat) and within 10 minutes of leaving, I fainted. And then I fainted again later. I had a plastic bag on my lap because I knew I was going to get sick. And it was hot as hell and I was sandwiched between 2 people and the seats were very uncomfortable.
3 hours later we finally made it to Accra (the longest bus ride ever!) and went to our hotel. I just collapsed and Ciara took care of me. I had a fever and some aches but not sure if they were just fever-related aches or malaria… I took aspirin and when I woke up the next morning I was feeling much better but I was still feeling nauseous. I still am. Although today it’s probably at the thought of going home.

So on Sunday we headed to the orphanage to spend the night in the guest house there. It was so good to see the kids again. Victor was particularly clingy and it broke my heart. We killed a few bugs in the room before we went to sleep (early…because no electricity and nothing to do) and we woke up at 5:30am because some village kids were yelling and screaming under our window. I spent some more time with the kids before they went to school. We left at 10:30am, during their break so they were all having a snack and I just sneaked out. I didn’t want to say goodbye to them twice. I didn’t want to sob again. But I cried when we walked away. Just tearing up now just thinking about it.
We went to the volunteer house to pick up Tanya and headed north to visit a bead factory. It was very interesting to see how they’re made. Especially after buying so many beads myself. On the way back to the main road, we saw a poor baby goat get run over by a taxi. It was still alive and trying to get up but its back must have been broken. It was crying in pain and for its mom. It was horrible to watch and hear. Haunting.
Then Ciara and I took a trotro north to go see the Akosombo Dam on Lake Volta. It’s the dam that generates all the power for Ghana. Now I know why we rarely had electricity. It’s tiny. And the machines are broken. We headed back to the volunteer house to pick up our bags and headed back to Accra for dinner.

I’ll cry one more time I’m sure. Or twice. On my way to the airport and plane takes off.
I really could have stayed at least another month. I’m not missing anything from home really. But I’ll be glad to see a doctor and get my wound looked at. It’s still infected. It’s been a couple of weeks now. And it hurts. And I’ll see if I had malaria or some other exotic disease.