Malaria

 Let me start out by saying we bought malaria pills in Houston, packed them carefully away and completely forgot about them. Let me also say that two hundred years ago malaria was a serious risk but in 2025 there are medications to treat this parasite borne disease. You get it by being bitten by an infected black and white striped mosquito and a few days or months later you get sick. Symptoms vary but include the usual fever weakness diarrhea vomiting and so forth.  If you don’t get treatment the parasite might very well kill you.

Layne is getting excellent treatment at the public hospital, the Academy Hospital, a shabby building soon to be replaced with a new building but filled with really caring staff. She was admitted with very low blood pressure but they have put that right and they have identified the particular parasite and have a course of treatment to kill it. She is possibly going to be moved out of the ICU today or tomorrow and may be out of the hospital later this week.

The funny thing here is that Suriname was declared malaria free, a huge accomplishment, declared by the World Health Organisation last June.  Funny in a manner of speaking because Layne has put that hard won recognition at risk. The public health department is planning to run a campaign across the country to have people stay alert to the symptoms. Team Lost at work and we apologize.

“Giving blood is an act of love” says Google Translate. Layne’s journey into the ICU at the public hospital which follows the official language, Dutch, but whose slogan is in English.

This duality reflects society as a whole in Suriname a fascinating country, the smallest in South America with just 600,000 people, a colony that got independence from the Netherlands in 1975, that is a mixture of cultures that is head spinning in its complexity. Yet is a very pleasant place to visit at least superficially which is all I have managed so far. There is no doubt we did well to escape the chaos that is neighboring Guyana. No one here disagrees with that statement.

There will be those who will argue that Malaria is what you deserve for visiting the tropics  but for us it’s just another experience. You imagine breaking down in the middle of nowhere as the ultimate disaster. We’ve done that already and we solved that without drama. Now we have malaria to deal with and we are handling that too and it is a tremendous nuisance. The question isn’t centered on us, but on the observer who says “it isn’t worth it” and I would agree certainly if it isn’t worth it to you that is a perfectly respectable choice; don’t travel as we do and avoid the possibility of infectious disease. For me these setbacks are the path to growth, avoiding hassles leads to boredom for me. Bear in mind I am a terrible  organizer and sitting at home managing a business would kill me faster than malaria.  It all depends on how you prefer to die I suppose, and how you like to live. If we die on the road there will be no regrets and this is a timely reminder. Plus we have made provision to get Rusty rescued if that does happen. I don’t want my last thought to be worrying about him being abandoned in the streets of South America. He alone among us didn’t mind Georgetown, but firmly attached to me:

My job through all this has been to buy stuff. The weird thing about the public hospital is the family has to supply everything. That meant on my second day in Paramaribo I had to learn everything about this new country. Normally it’s fun to learn a new culture but this was jumping in at the deep end. 

We first went to St Vincent Clinic as recommended by the landlord of our air bnb. We spent a couple hours there and paid $100 for admission, $45 for lab work and $360 more dollars for time spent in a room and an ambulance ride to the public hospital called the Academy, Suriname’s trauma center, main ICU and the main hospital for this country of 600,000 people. The private clinic did nothing. They said maybe she had dengue but their lab work was useless and confirmed nothing and then they said they had no room and shuffled Layne rapidly into an ambulance for a transfer. Something was very fishy. 

Sure enough the very patient kind  and thorough young doctor in the ER ordered a bunch of tests at the Academy lab and said he thought Layne had symptoms consistent with malaria not dengue. He was incensed the private clinic lab had not done a test for dengue with Layne’s blood. I thought to myself they wanted nothing to do  with a suspected malaria case ( they knew it wasn’t dengue I’m certain)  and  palmed her off on the public hospital.

It was good for us they did. I paid $9 to have her admitted and then I learned the hospital supplies nothing for the patient. I had to go out and figure out where to buy every single thing, diapers, a comb, shampoo, deodorant, bottled water (NONE available in the hospital), plus I had to bring food and every single thing Layne needed. Visiting hours at 11:30 am for one hour and four pm for 90 minutes daily. No cellphones allowed (because they have cameras and no photos allowed for patient privacy). 

Suriname does not use credit cards and if you think the US should go back to the gold standard and no credit should be extended ever let me tell you a cash economy is a total pain in the ass. I have to haunt the ATMs like the hunchback of Notre Dame, and every time I get ahead I find myself counting out 500 Suriname dollar bills paying for something, gas, groceries, supplies for Layne and so forth. (40SRD to One USD) Thank God our landlord at the air BnB uses Zelle or I’d have to accumulate even more. It’s a nice apartment in a nice complex. 

Indeed Suriname is a very pleasant country, it is developing oil resources, there are gold mines and extensive agriculture. Honestly I don’t see much in the way of tourist attractions, crappy beaches, no mountains just farmland backed by impenetrable jungle. The few people I have talked to are astonished to discover we are pure tourists with no connections at all to this country. No one comes here unless it’s to visit family or some such reason. 

Suriname is also an astonishingly diverse country. The supermarkets are all owned by Chinese merchants. Indian businesses are everywhere. Indonesians (another former Dutch colony) have restaurants all over the city. Dutch is the official language but most educated Surinamese speak English but not everyone. Others speak Mandarin, Tagalog or Urdu. It’s crazy. The country is peppered with Muslim masjids and Hindu temples alongside churches. At a time when the US is rejecting multiculturalism Suriname is living it full bore. And I don’t find it easy as I don’t know who speaks what, so I wander around  prefacing everything I say with “do you speak English?”

It’s like getting malaria: Suriname forces you to think and to stretch your thinking and to figure out where you fit in this astonishing mixture. Layne told me everyone in the hospital knows who we are…the American tourists traveling in a van. We are unique and I find that a pity. 

I don’t think Suriname for all that it’s neat and tidy and suburban is exciting enough to hold my interest. It’s a wonderful refuge in time of illness and a great place to get medical care but when we are rested, France is two hours drive and a ferry ride south of us. All I know about French Guyana is that it is eye wateringly expensive. Better to get sick in Suriname and we at least have lots of different foods to explore for there’s our stay when Layne leaves the hospital. And she is very grateful for your good wishes. And yes, we will take our malaria pills…now. Duh.