I've been trying to be good, taking my doxycicline pills every morning and evening to ward off malaria . The first breath of the monsoons already graces Lucknow - quiet gray sheets of rain that come and go without warning - so I assume the mosquitoes will arrive shortly. Better safe than sorry, right?
Wrong. Unfortunately, the drug manufacturers don't seem to have my best interests at heart. Despite the fact that 40% of Malarial infections in the US are imported from India (and another 33% come from SE Asian refugees according to the CDC), they've gone and made Doxcycline useless for any respectable Indian as well as for anyone respecting Indian Tradition. Why, you may ask? Because Doxycycline cannot be taken within two hours of consuming dairy products.
Why is this problematic? CHAI. One cannot begin one's day in India without chai. It's not only unheard of, there's also really no other alternative. Parathas, omlettes, roti, all are lovely but they're later morning meals, more like lunch than breakfast, and never available for the early-riser. Why not have chai without milk, you might ask? Chai without milk is not only absurd, it's impossible. Given that most Indians use powdered milk to make big batches of chai in pots stirred for hours, there is no requesting your cup without milk. It just doesn't happen.
The well-intentioned uselessness of Doxycycline reminds me of the first, equally useless advice I received when traveling to the Developing World. I had stopped to visit an old friend, Christine, in southern France as I made my way to Senegal. I stayed with Christine's host family in Montpellier and was given a stern lecture on Safety by her kind but narrow-minded host father who had been a doctor stationed in Deepest Africa. He warned me never to walk barefoot on the sand, nor walk on a beach without a parasol, nor sit directly on a mat or blanket placed directly on any type of ground. The Insects, and their more sinister friend, Disease Lurk Everywhere, I was informed. You Must Evade Them At Every Step.
Now excuse me, but haven't the people of India and Africa found less absurd responses to tropical diseases than either (a) taking drugs that not only make you lactose intolerant, but also caution you to avoid EXPOSURE TO DIRECT AND ARTIFICIAL SUNLIGHT (yes, another benefit of Doxycycline which has brought me close to fainting more times than I can count), or (b) force you to bundle yourself up in cheese cloth before setting foot in Wild Africa? No chai, no sun, and ridiculous clothing? What a life. I'm hoping something better than sickle-cell disease will come my way.
Also, another note on false solutions. Take a look at the first happy picture of the Right to Information Act's supposed access to documents, then look at the actual documents I was able to access after last year's summer of research... Disappointing?
| OPTIMISM: James John |
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| “You pinch the administration and they will respond. The RTI act has kept hope alive.” RAVI NAIR, India Today |
PESSIMISM: UP's Land Records
<- Storage facilities!
1 comment:
it's all about malarone these days and even *that* is no guarantee! but at least you can have your chai and go outside with it...
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