Just as a disclaimer, before I launch into this next blog post: Mefloquine is one of the 3 different kinds of Malaria drugs that the Peace Corps offers you in your first week of service. I choose Mefloquine because it was only a weekly dosage, and well the other reasons will be outlined in the rest of this post:
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Mefloquine—hearing the name makes people shutter, the same way the hyenas in the Lion King did when they would say Mufasa's name. Mufasa-Mufasa-Mufasa. Melfoquine-Mefloquine-Mefloquine. The reason for this is because of the detailed horror stories volunteers and military personnel alike (the military used to be given the same drug but was taken off of it due to the severe impact of side effects), have been passing down to the new trainees since the creation of the drug. The side effects consist of: dizziness, headaches, lightheadedness, loss of appetite (LOL yeah ok sure), nausea, trouble sleeping, lucid dreams, hallucinations, and other visual disturbances…sounds like a blast, right?
As one could guess, the last three side effects are the ones from which these camp-fire-like stories originated from, and where the fear of this drug comes into play. But for me, this just drew me to the drug even more. I don’t know, maybe I’m just weird but I didn’t just want to hear these stories about these ‘visual disturbances’, but I actually wanted to experience them first hand. So alas, here we are, with me on Mefloquine.
Even though it’s a WEEKLY pill, I was instructed to take one every day for three days in a row. I was instructed to do this so that my body would go into overdrive and protect me from any mosquito bites that I might accrue within my first week in country. And with yesterday (Saturday February 4th 2017) being my last of the 3-day binge on Mefloquine, I knew that this would be the time I would have the best chance of experiencing these ‘visual disturbances’. And as you can guess from the flow of this blog post, I wasn’t disappointed.
So, here is my fist lucid dream on Melfoquine:
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It first started with my whole entire Peace Corps cohort (yes all 23 of us) inside my high school gymnasium, waiting for instructions from Andy, our Peace Corps Volunteer Leader (PCVL) to instruct us on what to do, for he promised us he would finally bring us on our first ‘African Adventure.’ Once he showed up we walked outside, to what was supposed to be Africa, but it was just a field by my high school. We were at the bottom of a grassy hill, where there was a short black fence at the top. He informed us that when we got to the top of the hill, all we had to do was climb over it and we would enter an African oasis, where we would be able to experience Africa at its finest. In the dream, I thought this was weird because I knew that at the top of the hill would be just my high school track, but I let it slide because he was our leader and he knew better than us. At that point one of the drivers from the Peace Corps showed up (his name is Earnest), and he informed us that he would stay to the back of the group to protect us. Of course, this was reassuring for all.
Then out of NO WHERE a wolf runs by us up the hill and hops over the fence, and maybe less than 100 feet behind him, we see a brown bear chasing him. Now, for some reason this bear wasn’t the smartest, so he couldn’t seem to figure out how to get his large body over the small fence. He just made bear noises and clawed at the fence instead. Keep in mind that even though it was bear noises- it somehow translated into our brains as English. So, what he was really saying is ‘Come on wolf, you had to go over the fence? You know this is hard for me, come back and well talk this out civilly, I promise.’
At this point we were all TERRIFIED. I mean none of us have seen a bear close up before, so like what do we do?? This is when Andy turns to us and says ‘Now THIS is your first lesson in African Culture.’ (weird because brown bears aren’t in Africa, but hey it’s a lucid dream, there’s no real rules). So, we are all thinking like— ‘OK he’s going to make noise to scare the bear off and we’ll all run the other direction’. If that’s what you guessed too you’d be GREAVELY mistaken. Instead Andy starts running, in a full sprint, up the hill and tackles the bear to the ground while attempting to put him into a sleeper hold. As of course most people would be, we were in shock, so to protect us Earnest stretched out his arms—which of course can stretch out for miles somehow and says ‘Please hide behind my arms and I will protect you.’
As we all gather behind Earnests’ arms, the bear starts to get up because he realizes what is going on and is NOT having it. He starts making bear noises—which loosely translate too ‘DUDE WTF are you doing? I’m not going to sleep. Get off me!’, where Andy simply keeps yelling ‘Go to sleep bear, go to sleep.’ The bear then proceeds to run down the hill with Andy on his back. Andy is ok with this and keeps telling the bear to go to sleep, while also telling us: ‘All you have to do is put the bear in a sleeper hold, and once it passes out we can be on our way over the fence. The sleeper hold is the only real, traditional, African way to defeat a brown bear’.
While all this is happening, Earnest has left us, with no protection, and now comes back with the wolf, which the bear was chasing in the beginning. The wolf is on a rope-like leash, and Earnest proceeds to show us how to EASILY put the wolf in a sleeper hold with just one strand of rope. He quietly whispers to us that this is the ‘real traditional way’ but not loud enough for Andy to hear.
Andy doesn’t have any rope on him, so he says that we can use this special tree which can bend and stretch any way you want it to. And of course, because its dream land, the tree magically appears right in front of him. He explains that these trees are the best because you can use the long branches to tie around the bears neck and the tree knows to only lift the bear up enough until it passes out and then releases him once we all leave.
While Andy was busying wrestling the still VERY MUCH awake bear, trying to tie this tree-rope-thing around its neck, one of the bears friends comes over to see what all the ruckus is about. The friend-bear comes over and starts to yell at Andy saying ‘Hey what are you doing to my friend? Don’t do that! If you stop, we’ll leave you alone and you can just go on your merry way.’ Which does not impress Andy in the slightest because (MID BEAR WRESTLE), he puts up the “talk to the hand” hand to this bear-friend and says ‘NOT NOW BEAR FRIEND ILL DEAL WITH YOU NEXT.’ To where the bears' friend sighs a bit, but contrary to popular belief, actually listens to Andy and just sits down right where he is.
Andy finally manages to tie the bear up and the tree does exactly what is expected of it and puts the bear to sleep. Andy then turns to us, holds out his arms in triumph and proclaims ‘So, any questions?’
And then I woke up.
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I’m not sure what this all means to be honest. If I were to guess it’s something about fear: the fear of not being able to assimilate into my community, the fear of being casted as a foreigner. The fear of setting or being expected to complete a take that is extremely beyond my capacity. Maybe it has to do with being away from everything I’ve ever know, everything that I’m comfortable with. Maybe it’s about learning to trust people. Trusting these people with whom I’ve JUST met with my personal safety and wellbeing. Maybe this dream was telling me that just because someone does something differently than me, doesn’t mean it’s wrong, or that it won’t achieve the same outcome in the end. Maybe the fact that it was set in my hometown but received no help from anyone from home shows my fear of disconnect from them, from my loved ones, the distance, and how it’s possible that we will grow apart over the next 27 months.
But the dream isn’t all bad. The sense of protection that we received from Earnest shows just how protecting the Ghanaian people can be. They will look after you whether they have known you for their whole life, or if like me you were introduced 5 days ago. Andy showing us the ‘cultural norms’ no matter how bizarre they seemed, showed that my training will prepare me for ALL types of cultural encounters I will experience within the next 27 months. Being surrounded by all of my cohort shows that I feel connected to them already, I feel part of a group, I feel comfortable enough to face a brown bear with them; and this is all I can ask for.
I’ve picked up everything I’ve ever known and moved to the other side of the world, a different continent, a different country, a different region/area, a different culture, a different traditional background. Of course, I’m going to be scared, nervous, and excited. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I wouldn’t change anything about my path in life, no matter what the hallucinations say.