Just Desserts

Those beautiful, smiling pictures were taken well before the onslaught of a rather severe bout of dyspepsia erased the guacamole-induced smile from my face. Both Laura and I were sick as dogs for the past few days, but (disclaimer) cannot blame Bollate with 100% certainty. I was in agony for several days and it was so much worse since I was away from home. My phone refused to send text messages, so I could not even complain to friends and family half a world away.

When I finally began to feel slightly normal, I thought about the children I’d visited with in Arusha. We’d decided that it was, perhaps, a virus. Had I caught it from one of the kids? Are the kids ill now? The thought of suffering through such a sickness on the street is unbearable. Bathrooms are inaccessible and there’s no good place for a child to clean himself; something so contagious would spread like wildfire under those conditions. Already malnourished, as all of the children are—each and every one, a virus like that has the power to kill a child.