A Look Back to 1969 - Rural Malaysia

March 1969 Entry
My Peace Corp experience has really started. The past week old "Count Malaria" (according to Radio Malaysia) has been on the prowl in my village. One of my little next door neighbors was really sick this last week. I took him to the clinic on the back of my bicycle and had a blood test run on him. He had gone to the clinic 3 or 4 days earlier and at that time he was feverish, too. Well, I looked at the prescription he received and my ire was aroused when I discovered he had been given no blood test at the time and was sent home with aspirin and vitamin B complex--hardly the proper treatment for a suspected malaria case. I could be wrong but the man at the clinic doing diagnostic work may have a few misconceptions. For instance, this is a malaria area and all the kids that come to the clinic are not given blood tests for malaria. Only "suspected cases" are. The clinician also feels that the people who live here can tolerate malaria but people from the outside can't. This is bull. The leading killing disease here is malaria.

From work done by another volunteer near a major city to the south (a blood test survey) some old people hardly had any hemoglobin left (exaggeration) because of the abundance of malaria parasites. There are three cases 50 yards from my house. The sickest of the lot who I took to the clinic, is up and around and eating now, so he's made it. Now he must continue with the chloroquine for some time.

Preventive medicine programs are hard to put across because of some beliefs held by the majority of the people here. For instance, if you have eaten watermelon or papaya you can't take any medicine lest you become drunk. Papaya is a marvelous fruit for vitimin A and many people here won't touch papaya even if they have taken aspirin.

So, tomorrow is the last school day this week. Only 2 more weeks left, then glorious vacation. I have to go to Kuala Lumpur because I know I have some sort of nematode worm helping me digest my food. I also have to replenish my supply of malaria tabs.

I should have a fat check in April...$135 Malaysian dollars ($45 US) back rent I paid for out of my living allowance, plus $50 ($17US) more for next month's rent. Plus my $260M ($87US) living allowance...that's $445M ($148US). To this add 5 days of vacation pay which comes to $135M more ($95US). So the total is $580M ($193US).