21 December, 2011

Mefloquin's Requiem

You generously gave me, the best sleep
Into my brain you crept so damn deep.
An explorer of dreams could not ask for more,
But you quickly began to lose your allure.
I enjoyed time spent in the realm of dreams
With a love left behind, but when the same fiends
Who play tricks on the mind gave me a start
It became time for you and me to part.
Friends said a free trip was a sweet deal
But things that weren’t there were suddenly real.
In moments a mango tree doubled in size,
And in my hut I saw my dead cats glowing eyes.
Your job was only to protect me from malaria
Now I’m saying goodbye to avoid total hysteria.

Don’t worry all, I’m now taking a different medication that helps prevent me from contracting malaria. There is no vaccination, just prophylaxis medications which are too expensive for rural farmers here to give their whole families and cannot be take indefinitely so therefore are unable to help the huge populations of people living in malaria ridden areas of world. Malaria sucks and is still extremely dangerous!
The first drug I was on, Mefloquin gave me super vivid dreams, which were fun but it made it harder for me to experience them lucidly a la Carlos Castaneda and ‘The Art of Dreaming’. The real negative side of mefloquin was the ADD and memory loss type symptoms I was experiencing, which made it a bit harder to learn a new language. No worries to those on their way into the Peace Corps or who will be taking malaria meds at some point, not everyone experiences these symptoms and if you do you can always take a different type of pill.

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