To the Cambodians!
So the inevitable happened, one of us got real sick and it wasn't pretty..
I (Lou) had eaten some bad meat for lunch and two hours later became very sick.. Our colleagues said "You are too sick- Go to the Cambodians!".
This is the UN mission's (UNMISS) hospital here in Juba. It's run by Cambodians. They don't speak English and I don't speak Cambodian. This faced us with the challenge of explaining my symptoms though charades. They didn't seem to understand at first because they gave me some pills and sent me home. Because my stomach was rejecting everything at the moment, the pills came back up in less than a minute.. We went back to the Cambodians. This time, my face was "grey as a ghost", as Sofia described it. They understood the severity of my condition and admitted me.
The rest of the evening was quite a blur. The hospital is just a bunch of white metal containers and I was placed in an empty one with the sign "Women's Ward" on it. It had one bed (don't think they get many women passing through), and one non-functioning TV. The cambodians got to work right away. I was given an I.V followed by a series of various (and unknown) injections and pills. We would ask what it was and what it was for but they didn't understand and replied "ok, ok" while injecting me with an unknown shot.
That night we didn't get much sleep. About every other hour someone would come in, turn on the painfully bright fluorescent light, give me an injection, pill or check my I.V, say something we didn't understand and then leave again. I was very lucky to have Sofia stay with me the whole night, don't know what I would have done without her.
After what seemed like one of the longest nights of our lives, sunrise finally came around. I was discharged later that day with a gift bag more unknown pills to take. We still don't know what they did, or what pills I got, but they worked and I'm back to health.
Thank you UNMISS Cambodians. We might not have understood what you were saying, but you gave us a very interesting night and managed to bring me back to health, so I am grateful.
















