zomg!1

Here's a lesson in empathy I didn't plan to learn. Two nights ago, I was walking home from dinner, enjoying the cool night after the evening rains. I had actually turned down the offer of a motorbike ride home.

On the say home, I was bit by a dog. The little son of a bitch ran up from behind me as I was walking away from his house and bit me without warning on the leg. I was surprised and uncommonly upset, and looked back in anger, shouting at the dog as it retreated. Then I took out my phone to shine light on my leg. Although the bite hadn't hurt very much, I was bleeding.

After cursing out loud for a little bit, I stood stunned for a few moments: the reality of being bit by a dog in just about the most remote place possible to be bit by a dog was really ruining my evening.

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I realised in that moment --maybe realised is the wrong word, because I felt and understood and experienced-- what getting bit by a zombie feels like. In all those beautiful, violent, poetic movies that we love so, we feel dread and sympathy for someone after the perhaps get through the zombie attack and realise they are wounded, and have but hours or even seconds before the infection turns them into a zombie themselves.

Still we don't really know what it feels like or what goes through the person's head. Well, I knew right then, as I looked down at my bleeding leg. It didn't help that I'd read up about rabies in the past and knew about how it attacks the nervous system and how the vaccine has to be administered before it becomes too late. This was it. I was going to die from rabies in Oecusse... After an intensely painful corruption of my consciousness as it took over my nervous system.

It's interesting to note that many zombies as portrayed as humans might be if they had rabies: think of 28 Days later or Zombieland (excellent movies by the way).

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The rest of the story is slightly less dramatic, if at times panicked: I came to my senses and went to the hospital, where I found they didn't have any vaccines. I tried the UN mission next but had trouble getting in without ID and without referral. Finally, they let me in and I got a vaccine by an Indonesian doctor and a Zimbabwean nurse, who were just as surprised and taken off guard by my arrival as I was thankful for their help.

I felt relieved, but also sad and guilty, it seemed like a privilege to be treated (I felt) so well (or so fortunately): I don't think every person in Oecusse, if put in my situation, would have had the same luck and the same outcome as I did.

Well. This is a story for the grandkids: how I didn't die from rabies in Oecusse. The excitement isn't over, however: the post-exposure schedule for the vaccine means that I will need an injection five days after I arrive in Ghana.

Stay tuned for more excitement and adventure, here on Monkey Music / Woon's Tunes