The Dreaded Set-pill

It's been over a year since my last post and I think that I've finally managed to understand how to blog. Now that I do, be ready to laugh at my life's random stories and share in moments of bliss and delight.
     (I've decided to do a couple of posts in the near future on some of my hats and share in memories from the past, so if you want to see where my straw hats have actually blown in the world, keep an eye out.)

So 05h00 Sunday morning I wake up to get going to the Malawian border. The 650 kilometre drive from Caoxe (Mozambique) to Blantyre (Malawi) would take approximately 19 hours, with only ONE overnight in a small town 3 hours from Blantyre... that meant 16 hours on the road.
     When my left foot touched the floor, the throbbing in my face felt as if a boulder had fallen on my head the night before and I realized that it was the well-known but very unwelcome party-crasher called Malaria.

After about 13 hours on some of the worst roads imaginable, it was time to take the dreaded pill. That pill which makes one shudder at the alien feeling of eating a jellybean with your bum cheeks, one's stomach goes hollow, lungs gasp for air and toes curl backward in one's shoes. THE DREADED SET PILL. (A set pill, more commonly known as a suppository, is a quick-acting solid drug that is inserted into the rectum where it dissolves or melts.)
     It was late afternoon and the African families were huddled outside their huts preparing dinner and catching up on the latest bush gossip, needless to say, the roads were rustling with people and too crowded to stop for a quick bum-pill-pop.

When we finally found a small clearing, I jumped out with my feverish body and ran to the side of the road. In between the front and back doors of the vehicle I quickly loosened my belt, dropped my pants to my knees and pulled the hard plastic covering from the suppository. As my hand moved to my backside to do the most despised task... the once solid set-pill had decided to melt in my hand and turn into nothing else but Vaseline-like liquid.
     That was the random moment worth writing about; when a hundred little Mozambican children stormed closer to a vehicle parked next to the side of the road in the bush, only to find a white man with his trousers on his knees, laughing about something that he was trying to stuff up his bum.

Love always, from a much healthier Ed in Blantyre, Malawi.