by Two experiences with food poisoning
I ate this piece of fish on my second day in Congo. That night I couldn’t sleep. So I got out of bed and just sat on the couch and read my French dictionary. I sat there all night and felt really sick. I called the mission president’s wife about the sickness and she said that I should just drink water. So I drank a liter of water and then barfed the entire dinner from that night into the toilet. I felt better, I was just really tired from lack of sleep and because I hadn’t eaten anything.
Drinking water and throwing up is what will help you the most to have the food poisoning go away.
My experience with botulism:
One day we went down to the little shop next door and bought some tomato paste cans. There was nothing unusual about them except they had some rat poop on them and they were bulging a little more than usual. No biggy. I was making dinner and I punctured one of the cans with a knife and as soon as I took out the knife, the tomato paste shot straight out and hit me right in the eye then sprayed all the way to the wall and ceiling of the kitchen. It went all over the place. My face had tomato paste all over it.
Despite this little fluke I made a sauce with this tomato paste and then served it to the other missionaries in the apartment. They smelled it and said, “no way” and all three of them went to a store to buy food. I was really hungry so I ate it even though it didn’t taste good. Big mistake.
I felt good and then twenty minutes later the stomach ache started. I was in pain all night. My stomach was being tortured but I couldn’t throw up or use the toilet. I was just in pain in my bed. I didn’t sleep well but I felt good enough and the next day we went out and taught as though nothing had happened.
Be cautious with street food
The general rule is don’t eat street food with meat in it. You don’t know the quality of the meat they are using plus the meat may have parasites in it.
The best option to not get food poisoning is when you know something is bad or that can taste that it’s bad, just stop eating and go and eat something else. When I made tomato sauce once, the tomato paste was obviously bad. It tasted terrible so no one ate it except for me. I was the only one in the apartment who got sick and I didn’t sleep that entire night. So just be smart with what you eat.
