Lariam Dreams

Malaria is a raging problem in this country, and kills more people than AIDS annually. Mozambicans have somewhat of a tolerance built up, but visitors like us are particularly susceptible to getting it, and it's not a pretty illness. Therefore, Peace Corps has us on some fairly serious anti-malaria medicine called Lariam. It's a big, bitter once-a-week pill that gets stuck in your throat no matter how much water you try to wash it down with. The military stopped using it because (on rare occasions) it makes people go off the deep end (and you generally don't want heavily armed people going crazy). However, we unarmed Peace Corps volunteers are still on it, and the side effects most of us notice are frequent urination and really strange dreams.

 

Before taking Lariam, I didn't dream very often because I am such a heavy sleeper. However, now I find myself dreaming quite regularly -- so I've taken to documenting my weirder dreams. Upon waking from a particularly off-the-wall dream, I enter a one-sentence summary in a text file I keep on my desktop called "LariamDreams.txt". Here are some of the more interesting (and sometimes disturbing) entries for your amusement:

• A man started systematically hunting down and killing my family members because of a hugely successful board game we invented.
• I tried to check out of a hotel, but they found a dead guy shrink-wrapped in the closet of my room and arrested me. (This was right after I watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Great movie, by the way!)
• I kept finding crazy pre-historic bug-bird hybrids in my house, but when I captured them and tried to show them to my family they would change into everyday household objects, like napkins or plungers.
• I was at school, and a student died, but dismissal time was so hectic that I forgot to call her mom and tell her about it and it was really awkward when she showed up to pick up her child.
• A stalker followed me all day, so I ran into a Subway restaurant, threw 7-Up on him and stabbed him with a fork. (Justice served!)
• There was a bomb scare in Namaacha, but I slept through the alarm, and when I woke up everyone was gone and I had several angry text messages from Claudia, our training manager.
• I was having coffee at the Riverwalk and one of the riverboats sank -- I dived in and tried to rescue people, but couldn't swim fast enough and everyone died.
• I tried to be a guerilla fighter, but I had terrible aim with my grenade launcher so I went to the movies and watched The Hobbit instead.
• I was Fox Mulder, investigating an alien case, and finally had a breakthrough -- it all comes down to clues hidden in toilet paper! Of course! 

Thanks to Larium, I never have a dull night's sleep anymore. Some of the things I've dreamt are seriously strange, but I'm just glad that I don't have any of the other side effects -- moodiness, depression, loss of hair (!)... I can deal with weird dreams. If my hair starts to fall out, I'll get back to you.