The Thorn

Sharp rays of sunlight rain down like liquid turmeric. I merely recall the yellow light that permeates the streetscape. I recline on the left side of a bed, mid street and wonder why it is that my classmate is sleeping in my bed. It fails to appear as odd to me that I am snoozing in Arushan public. As I continue to sprawl out under the sun, more of my classmates crawl into the wooden bed, and even though it has been built for two, each and every one of the 14 Fulbright students snuggles up beside me on the mattress and falls asleep.

When I woke up I really had to pee. We were only two hours into our trip from Arusha to Dar es Salaam. It was 9 a.m. and I had been asleep since we left. The idea of “mining for medicine” (as the relieving of oneself is cleverly called in Swahili) in a field of low-lying Acacias that scarcely concealed our foreign flesh did not seem all that appealing, although my options were limited.

Across the roadway a group of farmers watched as we travelers descended the bus with bunches of toilet paper in left palms, looking for a proper spot to cop a squat.

The dry earth cracked underfoot as I walked inland, away from the motorway. I passed my fellow Swahili students and procured a ditch in which to mine medicine. After mining, I fastened my jeans and upon raising my head I came face to face with a vicious branch of Acacia thorns, inches from my vision. Had I arisen any quicker I would have poked an eye out on that ferocious botany.

I treaded through the razor blade branches, gratified that I was wearing pants and a sweater, as to protect my skins from the fierce foliage. Just as I was home free, about to reach the road I felt a stab in my right calf. Initially I assumed I had been stung by a wasp. As I glanced down at the back of my leg I saw I had been stuck by a branch of needles. I plucked the thick 4 inch thorn from my jeans, surprised that it was in so deep and that it had managed to penetrate the jean fabric. I tossed the spike into the bush , and made my way back to the bus. When I got back to the bus I worried about the fact that my leg felt like it was on fire, and as I examined the skin, I gasped at the fact that there was still part of a thorn stuck deep in there.

At noon we stopped off at a restaurant along the highway. As I drank stoney tangawizi and ate a samosa, I could only think about how I was to remove the wooden needle lodged in my leg, even though I had been unable to do so after mainly painful squeezing attempts. Following our departure from the rest stop, I tried to distract myself with the scenery. As the mountain ranges faded into fields of coconut palms, we slowly reached the coast. Any time our bus made the slightest stop, women and men would flood our windows selling enticing sacks of oranges and sour sops, apples, cashew nuts, juices and sodas.

At one petrol station a group of young men awoke me from my slumber by sticking a pair of Makonde carvings through my open window. Even though I assured them I was uninterested in making any purchases, they insisted on providing me with a good price. They illustrated pairs of handmade leather sandals, coconut shell earrings and seed necklaces. The longer their merchandise hung in my face, the more desirable it became. Although, just as I was thinking of taking a second glance at a particular pair of beaded shoes, the driver returned and we sped off before I could even say kwa heri.

By the time we reached Dar es Salaam it was 4pm and the warm coastal winds flooded through the open windows. Our vehicle crawled through the wide avenues, crowded between early evening traffic. Vendors walked the curbs and pathways between the slow moving cars to display their wears: apples, oranges, coconuts, bananas, ice creams, cokes and fantas, flags, bath towels, bottles of water, car scents, cashews and roasted peanuts...

Upon arriving at our hotel in Mikocheni, I hurried to my room to attempt to dislodge the foreign object from my flesh. After numerous unsuccessful attempts I showed the swollen spot to my classmate who happened to be a former marine. He then ordered me to lay face down on the bed in the middle of the apart hotel while he procured proper tools to disinfect and pull the Acacia thorn out.

When he returned other classmates joined in watching while I poked holes in the bedding with my fingernails, digging deeper into the blankets in response to each shot of new pain.

When it appeared that the thorn would never come out, Hugh offered to kindly cut it out of me. Instead of being the patient of some botched hotel surgery, I opted to give my leg over to other hands. At which point Erin took a look and tried her best but was also unsuccessful. As my classmates poured in and crowded around the bed, everyone offered their opinions – some said it would come out naturally, others suggested I go to the emergency room, while others swore that a bath of vinegar would pop the thorn right out.

I finally got up from my bed and decided that I would try to get ready for my first night in Dar es Salaam. As I got dressed my classmates piled up on the bed while others sat on the couch, which wasn’t as vibrant as the yellowed hues from my dream, but all of a sudden the images that swirled in my subconscious during previous sleep had returned in a hot flash and how I had wished that I had dreamt about the thorn instead.

In the end I spent two days going to doctors who provided me with conflicting information, received a tetanus shot and a week later I managed to squeeze the 1.5 inch thorn from my leg and now, a month.5 later, the wound is almost healed!

The moral of this story is that you should try to avoid peeing on or near thorns. But when you gotta go, you…