Dropping Like Flies

In a couple of months I'm sure we'll be joking about the current situation on campus, but at the moment there's panic breaking out and everything is just so chaotic we don't know what to do anymore. I don't know what to do anymore and I've gotten to the point where I just want to fly home and leave Africa behind. I know that's only because, at this moment, I'm feeling very fearful, but we're facing the fact that there's only so much people can handle as foreigners in a third world country.

The Zulu experience this past week was truly a Zulu experience because we faced a lack of hygiene that's common in many villages throughout Africa. Sometime this week, some of our students picked up a bacteria that caused stomach illness. We still don't know exactly what it is, but our best guess is that it's a contagious bacteria that our bodies are rejecting. So many people have been rushed to the hospital that I lost count and there are only about 7 people in our group of 53 that haven't gotten sick. Even some of our leaders have gotten sick and the nursing students had to step up and try to help us.

The first group of people rushed to the hospital took 3 hours to get there and the doctors said they would have died if they hadn't made it on time. I got a cold this week and have been battling a fever. This morning I was also hit with the stomach sickness and I've been laying in bed all day. It's not as bad as other people because I've managed to stay hydrated and keep it under control. Before heading out of the states, the doctor at the University Health Care Center gave us all a prescription for this sort of illness and I've been taking mine. It's like antibiotics so I have to keep taking it even though I don't have symptoms anymore so that it doesn't come back.

We are at AE tonight, but we're leaving for a week long road trip to Cape Town tomorrow. We have no idea how the bus ride is going to go because people have been getting sick at random times and it comes out of nowhere. The nurses think it depends on how your immune system reacts to it and is able to fight it off. I haven't eaten a full meal since yesterday so that my stomach doesn't have anything to throw out.

I could type out some stories to give you a picture of this horror film we're living in, but I don't think anyone would want to read them and I would get sick just by retelling them. Some people have overcome the illness already and are fine, others are going through it at different levels (kind of sick, sick, and rushing to the hospital because they are really sick), and the last small group of people that haven't get sick are waiting to see if they'll survive.

We're all helping each other and encouraging one another, which is truly a blessing, and we're praying for God to come to our rescue. This morning as I realized I was getting sick, I read Jeremiah 12. In this passage Jeremiah is complaining to God and God responds by saying, "if you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?". I know that God is with us through this illness and he knows what He's doing. If we are being given this test, it's because He's preparing us to be His light in the world.

I'm hoping that tomorrow we can drive away from Pietermaritzburg and leave this all behind. I'm also hoping we can have a good time in these last couple of weeks we have left and that we can hang in there. God has done some amazing things this semester and for that I'm truly thankful.

P.S. If I don't type for a while after this blog, it's not because I've died of stomach illness lol, it's just because tonight is one of our last nights with internet. We're going to be in different hotels this week and then we're going to arrive in Cape Town. I'll have internet in Cape Town so hopefully I can update this blog by next Sunday and let you all know that we overcame the illness and that we're having a great time on the west coast of South African