My eye never got better.
In fact, I had tried to sleep in this morning to no avail because the swelling in my eye was so intense. I got up, ate breakfast and asked the hotel for some eye drops but they just didn't help. I took a nap out on one of the patio couches in the common area and hoped to be fine when I woke up. I wasn't.
When I woke up from a couple hour nap I checked my eye out and looked at my upper lid and there's a huge bump inside my eye way in the back where it comes in contact with my cornea when I blink. I tried to figure out what was wrong with a little web md, and I self diagnosed myself with a Chalazion, a lump caused my a clogged oil gland under the skin, and figured I should go to the clinic just to get it checked out.
Everyone is worried about me, but Jessica told me that Mohammed knows of a hospital in the michamvi pingwe village that I could go to so me, Alivianna and Mohammed went through the beach walk to the village. Alivianna joked that her journal is filled with me, David and Shannon talk and I laughed and noticed that mine is basically me, David, and Alivianna as well. We joke about being a three partner couple and it's pretty awesome.
Mohammed told us a story about how he used to be a street salesman around kichanga during the high season and told us such crazy stories about dealing with the police and many other things. It was really nice to talk to him because I haven't really this entire trip.
We arrived at the hospital and there were two women sitting outside of an empty building and a man at a house across the street walked over and greeted us. As I went in to talk to him he greeted me in swahili and asked where I wa from and why I was in Zanzibar. I told him I was a teacher of HIV and AIDS and he talked to me about that for like 10 minutes before asking me why I was there. I showed him my eye and he hardly looked and started showing me malaria tests. I immediately thought there was a miscommunication and he thought I had malaria and was going to give me a test. He then handed me a little package that said oxytetracycline hydrocortisone that I later learned is an antibiotic that I am supposed put inside my eye and he told me to go to the Duka and pick up some medicine.
We went to the duka and they gave me two little folded envelopes with a bunch of pills in them and I couldn't help but think Id be shelling put a couple thousand shillings for them. I only paid 500 shillings for two bags of antibiotics. That's less than 35 cents!!!! And I didn't be to pay for the hospital visit!
We went from the duka to mohammeds house where we found tatu and mohammeds family sitting and eating and preparing to sell some egg plants. We sat on the floor and watched his mother weigh some octopus they caught that day and talked to tatu and Mohammed about different cultural and political differences between our hometowns. Thabit came later and we had a hilarious conversation about how he is in love with tatu but she'll never love him like she loves David.
Tatu really does love David but David is gay. He hasn't told her yet, I don't think because she is very Muslim and homosexuality is really looked down upon. He told thabit and kessi because he is really close to them and they accepted him but he worried about her.
We talked for a long time until it was time for some of the people to teach.
I decided that my eye was bugging me and I couldn't wash my hands in the village so I was gonna walk home. Apparently the tide was too high to take the beach route so I had to walk the jungle-eque route which is not exactly what I wanted to do alone. The kichanga stray dog was with me and we began walking. One of the kichanga beach boys walked most of the way with me and tested my Swahili. We talked about soccer and a couple things before I got to the hotel safe and sound. I showered and put this stuff in my eye that burned like hell and then did a little cleaning up before dinner. This is the first time all trip I've been caught up on my blog and it's the end. I guess that means that I have been busy busy busy.
We have one more day before I head to the airport and I don't really know what to make of it.
On one hand I'm ecstatic to go home but on the other I am not ready to leave. I feel like there's so much more to do here and I'm not done connecting with the 13 people I'm here with. It's going to be a sad day on Saturday. :(
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