The Good and the Bad

This is an excerpt from Slow Mail with Love (p62) written by Gene September 30, 1952.

Dear Folks,

I spent my second week in Urundi in bed.  The nurses thought I had malaria and started me on Atabrine, but when the mail went to Murore I wrote Dr. Stewart and told him what they were doing.  I was afraid of the high fever.  He got my letter Saturday morning and left as soon as possible to come see me.  He knew that since I had started taking Paludrine, a prophylactic, eight days before leaving Belgium, I did not have malaria.He decided that it was infection in the chest, but he though it was too serious to be plurisy and not serious enough for pneumonia. He gave me 600,000 units of penicillin and left something else in case the fever rose again. It did not have anything to do with the pregnancy but we were taking no chances with only seven weeks to go.

Fresh roasting ears of corn are on the menu for tonight.  The food is delectable with so much fruit and vegetables.  We were laughing because Margaret T. said she guessed we would have to have pineapple, bananas and strawberries for dessert.

Houseboys clean the house, wash, iron, build fires, get bath water, and work in the kitchen.

We have an ideal site for a garden with natural irrigation.  Water flows down the hill from a spring and the gardeners dig ditches through the garden to irrigate it.  The garden and orchard are co-ops.  Both households share the expense for gardeners and "bird watchers." The guard keeps out the "birds," the kind that fly and the kind that walk.  Love, Gene