It's a jungle out there

In a month and a few days I'll be spending a week in Kenya.

Like all trips, preparations usually start about a month in advance, unlike my usual trips preparations for this one are quite important. My normal travel routine is standing in front of my bookcase wondering which cd's to bring (a task that is quite difficult and usually takes several test runs before all the boring cd's are eliminated), this time I have to get medication shot inside me so that I won't die.

Fun, and also, such a comforting thought!

To just get it over with me and my dad went to the KLM Travel Clinic yesterday morning. Since he already had his vaccinations last year I was the only one who actually had to get a shot, and it's been a while. I believe the last time was when I was 12 and all I remember from it is that I missed school and didn't cry (tear up, yes, but no crying!). Thankfully I didn't cry or pass out this time around either. Also, even though I got three shots (one against Yellow Fever, one against something call DTP and one against some other thing) the woman who gave me the shots was quite a professional and it only took about a minute to do it.

And then she talked about all the different things you can get in Kenya. Just so you know, there's this bug in still water around there so you should probably ask around before you take a swim. And if you do catch the bug, she added, you'll know because there will be blood in your urine. Oh, by the way she added, hepatitus B is quite big around there so be careful with any blood contact. For a moment I was confused and wondered who wouldn't be careful touching someone elses blood, but then I figured that if someone would give me 5 minutes I'm sure I'd be able to find at least 20 people on Gaydar. I left the building with a pile of brochures big enough to take up 50% of the luggage weight I'm allowed to take with me on the flight.

Overall the people who worked at the clinic seemed... well, they seemed weird, but they also seemed to know what they were doing. Sort of. There's only one thing that worried me.

While waiting for our turn my dad and I overheard this conversation between a woman of the clinic and a guy asking for some advice. The man was traveling to Indonesia soon and he was planning on staying on Java, would he need anti-malaria pills? The woman replied that no, he didn't because Java is malaria free, however just in case he should rub anti-mosquito stuff on him just in case. Then the man said he was also planning on staying on Lombok, would he need malaria pills for that? The woman looked at him and asked 'Will you be there for more than three nights?', the man replied that he was planning on only staying one night. 'Then you don't need them' the woman said.

Seeing that there are quite a lot of malaria carrying mosquitos in Kenya, this has left me with quite a few questions concerning the mosquito that I sort of would like to have answered before I leave. The most important one being; how could a mosquito know if you're just staying one night? Why would they suddenly get dangerous after three nights? Do they pinch humans the way people do in supermarkets when buying avocados? 'Neah, this one isn't ripe yet, come on guys let's go to the fat German in the other room!'.