Going to the MSU Travel Clinic was a mixed bag of great information and an overwhelming appreciation for how amazing our life is here in the United States since we found sanitation. I received three shots while at the clinic the day I went and left with quite a bit of reading material. I am beginning to develop quite the folder of information.
The nurse that I say that day new her stuff and she was able to answer most of my questions I had about traveling to a third world country. The clientele she gets there goes to many other places of Africa, especially Ghuana, I told her I purposely chose not to go to Ghuana because of all the attention and assistance that they are getting currently. I think that has more to do with my personality as wanting to operate under the radar rather than follow the mainstream than anything.
There are lots of things to be wary of in Tanzania and she had colored maps of what diseases were prevalent there, most of these maps were darkened. I won’t be in the TB belt though; it looks much like our snow belt in Michigan on a map although it describes the incidence of TB rather than lots of snow. Her phrase to me over and over was if you can’t peel it (there is a special to do this too), cook it (for a very long time) or open it (from a sealed container, like beer/wine/water) don’t eat or drink it. She also had the sage advice to ask the locals that I became acquainted with (if I couldn’t find an English speaking person that had been in country for a while) where in town I should not eat. She said if it made the locals sick to eat then it would for sure make me really sick. She also said that don’t let the looks of the place deceive me. Just because it is a fancy hotel doesn’t mean the folks that work there practice impeccable hygiene and that is what is required in a third world country in order not to get TD (tourist diarrhea). The last advice she offered, as far as avoiding getting sick (I felt like I was Luke Skywalker talking Obi-Juan Kenobi) was to keep a lid on my bottled water at all times and to place my tooth brush in a container so flies didn’t land on it. It is their feet and where they have been walking through is what you need to be concerned about.
The conversation then turned to safety and the advice is pretty much like it is in Detroit. Don’t go anywhere at night unless you are with a large group, don’t go into the “bad” neighborhoods and don’t take anything to eat or drink from a stranger because it could be drugged. Apparently you can make eye contact with folks though. Good to know.
We talked about bug spray (Deet, you don’t need 100%, in fact she advised against it because it is pretty toxic) and spray for our clothes (Permethrin, you can spray this on and it will last through several washings, I think that means it could last through my entire 7 week stay since I don’t know how often I will be washing my clothes)
She also said the things I kind of knew: where a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses; sunscreen (put the Deet over the top of it not the other way around); carry copies of your documents at all times and keep the originals some place safe and make copies for my family before I leave and the last advice was to procure “emergency evacuation insurance”. I will check to see if Farmers Insurance can get me a rider for this, but she also provided me with some names of places that provide this, sort of the Triple A of international travel, instead of providing you with a wrecker to take your car to a shop they provide you with a plane to get you to a “real” hospital.
With my head buzzing from the crazy amount of information she gave and my shoulders were hurting from the: Polio booster, Hepatitis A shot, and a flu shot, I left with my two prescriptions (one for my typhoid vaccine and the other for antibiotics to take in case of TD). I paid for the visit and made my next appointment for my Yellow Fever shot and to pick up my malaria medication. There were three choices for this and the prices vary by hundreds of dollars.
With another hurdle jumped I now have to make it "real" by buying my ticket.
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