My New Friend

I’ve developed a fly paranoia, which looks like a twitch or tic.  A constant, weird twitch.  It might only be a hair which has fallen off the top of my head (a regular occurrence here; moulting like a Labrador) onto my shoulder or arm but in my head it’s a fly, most likely a mosquito.  It sounds pretty reasonable to assume I’ll get the dreaded malaria.  All vols here have had it (a mild version at least) more than once on most occasions.  So when after a successful gathering of new vols at our house (not the film night originally intended due to a slight mix up with the projector… Note to self: Brush up on communication skills) and I felt a tender lump on my head.  I wondered.  I wondered what could have caused this lump to have appeared from, well, nowhere.  There seemed to be something there.  I pulled but only managed to pull out a few hairs.  I was merry (on vodka and tonic) and ready for bed so left it.  Sleep was disturbed.  I could feel it and, it was making me dream, dream of what would happen the next day.  I had decided I must go to the clinic so I imagined being taken there by Eric the taxi man and waiting for 3, maybe 4 hours to be seen.  This is normal and Hannah my housemate has just contracted malaria (for the fourth time) so the waiting time was fresh in my head.  I imagined being told that something insect like had burrowed its way inside my scalp and it needed to be removed.  ‘My New Friend’.  I imagined having part of my head shaven, the offending boil sliced, ‘My New Friend’ being removed, the commensalistic relationship ceased, my head bandaged (like I was a casualty of war) and hot footing it off to Sophia’s salon.  She is Tony’s Ghanaian girlfriend, I had met them both with some friends for lunch the other day and I had been told she ran a hair salon school.  My eventual ‘do’ was more 70’s retro than 21^st century and I’d suddenly developed an Afro.  Oh the joys of dreaming… you can have anything you fancy right?  The reality of my Sunday wasn’t so dramatic.  I consulted ‘Dr’ Ali, a short term vol from Zabilla who had bunked down at ours for the night.  She kindly tweezered an offending object from the top of the lump which looked frankly like part of some insects exoskeleton, she managed to squeeze something out but it wasn’t a puss filled pustule (thank goodness or I could have been in for smallpox) Just a little… leakage.  I then ‘googled’ for the possibilities of what it could be.  It’s not really a good idea to google things, and NEVER hit the images button.  Good god.  I was convinced I had botfly.  I went to the Afrikids Medical Centre on the other side of town, just to check it out and see what I could do.  I’d heard of vasaline being a good option; stops the oxygen supply and forces it out, clingfilm or tape would do similar things. I had to register, it didn’t take too long.  The nurse took my blood pressure; ‘normal’ and then my weight.  I assured her this wouldn’t be ‘normal’, she told me (imagine the African accent now) ‘You are very strong’.  Clearly an African euphemism for fat.  The carbs really are working their magic.  I waited about an hour and a half in the end and true to the old vols words got given antibiotics and paracetamol, the only disappointment being I didn’t get any vitamins.  I was told it could be a sting or something could have gotten in but the antibiotics would sort it out.  One wonders if he was simple pacifying the neurotic white woman, knowing, in time, ‘My New Friend’ will find his own way out.  Time will tell.