is clean and white and bright. I am in one of the new wards. Outside is the sound of other buildings under construction. At night it is silent, a strange phenomenon I have rarely experienced here in Moz. There are six of us in a room, lying on our hard hospital beds. Mostly we don’t sit up, unless someone is here to visit us. I am the most active – my roommates ask me to do favors for them since the nurses don’t pass through often.

The doctor is calm and inquisitive. She comes through once daily, in the morning, to ask us what we are feeling, and write it in her books. A little crowd of doctors-in-training follows her around. They ask me lots of questions. The nurses are firm and bossy. They scold if things are scattered all over your bed or spilling out of your nightstand. There is a janitor who seems to be cleaning nonstop. If you get something dirty or leave something on the floor, she will scold.

Three of my roommates vomit frequently but I don’t think they tell the nurses because they are afraid.

I cannot stay awake and I cannot sleep. The lights are off for only a few hours at night. They come through to give us all injections and pills. Then a while later the janitor comes and mops the floor. Maybe we sleep for a few hours. At 5 AM the nurses come in and turn on all the lights and make us get up to take a cold bath. A cafeteria lady comes by at mealtimes with a huge pot and shouts “almoço!” but no one responds. We do not want to eat. My family sends deliveries of food for me to receive at the door, but I do not feel like eating that either.

Visiting hours are 4 to 6 PM. Everyone comes. My host mother and father, my CCM boss, some CCM pastors, the ladies from the CCM women’s group who I don’t even know, my neighbor, my tennis friends. I try to smile and pay attention but mostly I’m feeling nauseous. They all tell me I need to eat a lot to get better. I feel guilty but getting the food to go down is a struggle with every bite.

Malaria is not what I had imagined it to be. I don’t suffer from waves of fever or violent shivering, apart from the moment of my arrival in the hospital. I WOULD get the intestinal version . . .

It is my first time in the hospital EVER, aside from physicals or strep throat tests.

(Now I am at home and feeling much better, gracias a Deus)