On your mark, get set, go!

T and I have a little race going. The big question: who will get malaria first? A morbid game, I know, but in our situation it isn't a question of if we'll get malaria; it's a question of when.

"Wait, what?" you ask. Well, in case you were unaware, Benin is a hotbed for the little parasites that cause malaria and the mosquitoes that spread them. To top it off, we stopped taking the anti-malarial pills we were using a few weeks ago. We're on our own now, without any form of protection. So why did we stop taking the drugs? Simple, the one we were taking costs around $5 a pill and isn't recommended for use beyond three months. There are other pills, sure, but they also aren't meant for long term use and come with a heavy list of possible side effects. And not just an upset stomach. Well, there's that too, but also central nervous system damage, vivid dreams and - get this - suicide. Yeah, so no thanks. I'd rather have malaria.

And so we've accepted our fate and made a game out of it. Unfortunately, we haven't got all the rules sorted out just yet. For example, who wins? The person who gets malaria first, or the one who stays healthy the longest? Of course the first person who reaches the finish line first wins, right? But do we really want to encourage ourselves to get malaria? Hmm.... Getting malaria first does come with serious bragging rights, but then again, you've got malaria. So should the prize go to the one who needs comforting in their time of illness? Or should it go to the one who managed to stay healthy and now has to put up with all the "I don't feel good" whining? Tough questions.

But in the meantime the race continues. T takes the lead for sheer anticipation, but then again, I woke up the other day with three bites to the face. Three direct hits, courtesy of a mosquito that found its way past the bed-net. I don't know, folks. This is going to be a close one.