Medicament

One thing that drives me CRAZY about Guineans is their absolute love and dependence on medicine. ANY time I say I am sick, or I don’t feel well, or I have a cut or an infection, the first thing out of their mouth is, “well, have you taken the medicament?” I especially loathe this response when I have a cold. THERE IS NO CURE FOR THE COLD, FOLKS! I just tell them I am eating a lot of oranges to get Vitamin C. THAT’s the medicament for a cold.

It’s like at the first sign of illness they run off to the health center for medicine. Our Dr, Traian, makes us wait at least 3 days before we take anything. Because most of the time, it clears itself up after 3 days! We aren’t even allowed to take anything stronger than Pepto Bismol for diarrhea. Know why? BECAUSE YOU HAVE DIARHHEA FOR A REASON! Your body is trying to get rid of something so you need to LET IT get rid of it! If it can’t do it itself after 3 days, you get to take Ciproflaxcin (I think it’s an antibiotic) to help it out. But NEVER Immodium AD.

Guineans seem to have no concept of this. That things will get better on their own. It’s like when the Western World introduced medicine to Africa they jumped on it like free rice and insist on taking it for everything. Which is, frankly, irresponsible.

It’s like the malaria thing. Where EVERYTHING is malaria (though I have seen a few cases of Typhoid, too, which is encouraging). Like yesterday when I told my homologue I had been vomiting and am sick, he asked, “Is is malaria?” And then, “did you take the medicament?”

First of all, no, it’s not malaria. These aren’t even the symptoms of malaria. Secondly, you don’t just go taking medicines willy-nilly, especially ones your body/the disease can build up resistances to (like antibiotics).

But at the same time it’s dangerous to just tell them to let well enough alone. Because then maybe they’d go way too extreme on the other end of things and never go to the doctor. It’s frustrating.