The Great Ethiopian Man-Flu
alex December 1st, 2008
The title of this post was due to be ‘The Great Ethiopian Run’ and the accompanying photo would be showing me finishing the 10km run through Addis along with thirty thousand other people.
The race still took place, but unfortunately I wasn’t part of it. I flew down to Addis on Saturday morning to spend the weekend getting together with other VSO volunteers, run (or maybe just fast walk!) the Great Ethiopian Run on Sunday morning, then come along to a workshop run by the OU for the rest of the week.
Instead, as soon as I landed in Addis I started to feel quite rough (achy and temperature), thinking a couple of hours kip and some paracetamol would sort me out. Didn’t quite turn out like that, and felt worse as the day wore on. Andy and Ben took me down to the hospital on Sunday lunchtime for blood test as it could’ve been malaria. The good news was that it wasn’t malaria, but I’d been coughing a lot so the doc sent me for chest x-ray (all clear too).
The Hayat hospital was really efficient and clean, I was in and out within 2 hours - this included the time for them to take blood tests (and get the results), give me an x-ray, Ben to have lunch in the cafe (the food was good & cheap) and for me to see the doc a couple of times.
I’m starting to think now that although there are 80m Ethiopians, it’s actually a very small place! The doctor was asking me where I was working, and knows some of my colleagues up at Mekelle Uni. Also whilst walking down the road in central Addis (I wasn’t quite sure of where I was going). I bumped into a couple of teachers I’d met in the staff lounge at work, very fortunate as they got me on the right line taxi and even paid the fare for me!
- VSO
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Hi Alex,
Sorry to hear about your health problems. Hope it won’t keep you down for long and you’re up and running soon! Look after yourself, Hassan.