Under attack from a new generation of terrorists

I hear some expats survive here without getting sick. Personally, I think that's an urban legend. There's a reason that our school gives faculty 15 sick days per year. Zoom in on any lunch table in the canteen and you're likely to find two sick people and three healthy people. Question the healthy people and you'll find that their state of health is fragile. Look at their pale faces, their trembling hands, their attempts to smile and laugh. They, too, have stories to tell.

OK, so Delhi has a sub(?)tropical climate, and lots of evil bacteria and germs and worms and giant mosquitoes hang out like snipers, waiting for the Great White Whales. I knew that before I came here. But I didn't know that it was guerilla warfare, them against us, survival of the fittest.

This is staph bacteria, the organization of which almost makes me believe in intelligent design, though it's the kind of "intelligence" that could lead to a long prison term.



You get to Delhi and it LOOKS like a relatively normal place, well, for a collection of 30 villages all on top of each other and traffic that doesn't actually go anywhere, just beeps horns a lot. By "normal," I mean that the ground is under your feet and people talk and breathe (sort of) and there are trees and birds, etc. It looks like the "real" world.

But that's deceptive. They are waiting for you. It makes you feel like Donald Sutherland in "The Bodysnatchers." When will they find you out?

This reminds me of when I was at my sister Josie's house in Boston, home alone one night, and a mosquito came after me. I don't mean bit me a few times; it was like a kamikaze pilot, zooming from room to room as I tried to escape. Some might think this was about instinct, or random, but I knew that mosquito was OUT TO GET ME.

Similarly, I think there is a master plan here. There's got to be a club, the "Causes of Illness" club, aka "Bwa-ha-ha-ha." They come together to figure out how to attack in all venues, without any clues, so that as you writhe in pain you go back through the last week and a half trying to remember everything you did, everything you ate, who sneezed in your vicinity, that little ladybug in the playground that seemed so cute but actually was a bubonic plague carrier.

Some of my colleagues are in the trenches more than others. They emerge once in awhile to report symptoms, visits to the doctors, blood tests. They are weary; they know they are losing to the "CoI" club's evil members. The rest of us admire their heroism. They inspire us to keep going when we get hit. Because we all get hit.

Time for personal experience. In fact, I am writing this now because I just spent a night under attack from the dark forces. Here's what's unusual in India: illnesses hide their identities, so you have no idea how to treat them. So I had a nice dinner out at the wonderful Italian embassy restaurant - one glass of Chianti, pan-fried fish with almonds and fresh green beans, a couple of pieces of bread dipped in olive oil. The fish was hot and cooked to a wonderful tender-crisp texture. Nothing tasted even remotely "off," and this certainly wasn't street food. I came home, did some reading, and feel asleep snug in my bed of thin mattress.

So why was I awake, only 2 hours later, wondering just how nauseous someone can feel without actually throwing up. At first I thought it was a dream - then, in the dream, my dream-self expressed disappointment in the poor quality of the plot, and I woke up to a headache and a stomach that felt like a scene from "The Perfect Storm." For the next three hours, I lay there curled in a fetal position and alternating between going into the bathroom, hoping please that I would throw up (the last time I threw up was in college), and lying huddled in blankets, shivering. Eventually, without any resolution of this situation, I fell asleep, exhausted and slightly less nauseated, and slept for a few more hours. And here I am, battle-weary, wondering what the heck just hit me.

Guess the bacteria in the photo yet? It's a picture of a cholera rave. No, I do not have cholera (hopefully). You get cholera when there's "fecal matter" in the water. An FDA employee here recently told me that to get used to the bacteria here, I should drink the water, "although it's diluted sewage." Thanks for the tip, buddy. What does he drink? Bottled water.



This isn't the first time the CoI club has attacked me, either. While I've run interference between malarial and dengue-carrying mosquitoes and watched a few of my comrades fall to those forces, I seem to invite the mysterious 24-hour predator drone stings. CoI members probably send the message, through their networks, "Civilian lying unsuspecting, actually asleep with her guard down. I'm goin' in." If this sounds familiar to you, I confess that I'm one of those people who got depressed after watching "Avatar" because I couldn't live in their world full-time.

So these evil drones (I think that's an oxymoron) zero in for a quick hit. What do I perceive? Just that for 24 hours I feel like I'm possessed by strange forces, that leave me down for the count, lurching to the medicine cabinet and pulling out all of the prescription medicines that you can get without prescriptions here, thinking that one of them could save me if I could only read the fine print on the labels.

The symptoms are a moving target; they start out making you think that perhaps you are getting a cold, or that your stomach is queasy. But you'd better get closer to a bed or couch, because within a few hours you will be immobile, feverish and nauseated, asking for a rosary even if you're Jewish or Quaker-Jewish or whatever I am. And then, just as suddenly, the cloud will lift, and you will emerge from the Bed of Doom, peering around cautiously.

Some expats refuse to give up the battle and continue trying new tactics. Ha! India got its independence from us Euro-Americans for a reason. Lunchtime conversation is about the new garlic-free diets, medicines, changing the exercise routine, Ayurvedic treatments (you know what I think about that, loyal blog readers), acupuncture, the necessity for massages and pedicures (that probably doesn't work, but it's the best placebo around). But then the next week they're gone from lunch and you hear whispers about platelets and hospital visits and medivac helicopters (no, that's just for the well-to-do students).

But don't worry; there are lots of great doctors and hospitals here. Hmnnn . . . then why does everyone tell me when I ask about where to get a good checkup, that I should go to Bangkok (???) And there is a definite hierarchy of hospitals. Of course, the one right down the street, the "superspeciality" hospital, is the one that apparently is a lawsuit waiting to happen (but thank god for corrupt judges). The hospital that anyone who's really sick actually pines for is way across town, the "MAX" hospital (also "superspecialty"), and located near a couple of major malls. I wonder how many people have died trying to get there in Delhi traffic. Luckily the few 24-hour hits I've suffered have not sent me to a hospital, so I haven't faced this challenge yet. Currently, I view the hospital traffic as an annoying obstacle to mall shopping. Can't those sick people walk there?

Back to last night. I was planning to go running this morning. Somehow that seems a lot less attractive after a night of shivering under the blanket and examining the inside of a toilet bowl. But what I wonder is, where is the fairy germmother who could at least remove a extra pounds while I'm suffering. I mean, if they're going to make me suffer, could I at least get a consolation prize?

Please, please, come to India. We need more expats to share our germs. I hear that the CoI club is working on an international "We love global warming" migration strategy.