Cameroonian Medical Advice (le palu derange)

When it comes to sicknesses, Cameroonians seem to always have a prepared, well-rehearsed script of explanations of what brought upon your illness. All you need to do is offhandedly mention one symptom and someone will start spouting off their unprofessional, unsolicited medical advice, no follow-up circumstantial/ backup questions necessary. In my experience, this medical advice flows especially freely from strangers on buses, but that's generally because they are screaming at you for putting their health or their children's health in danger, i.e. on a 110 degree hot season bus ride when you open your window for a little airflow for some small relief from your own personal uncontrollable sweating and the unbelievably hideous collective stench filling the small enclosed space packed full of ripening human bodies, baton de manioc and dried, rotting fish, and the woman behind you starts screaming at you that "CAN'T YOU SEE MY CHILD? CAN'T YOU SEE HOW COLD HE IS?! CAN'T YOU SEE HOW THE DUST IS MAKING HIM SUFFER?!" as she clutches her sweating child, clad A Christmas Story-style with immovable limbs in layers and layers of thick wool crochet, and as another man clambers across three people to shut YOUR WINDOW without bothering to solicit your opinions on the matter. REWD. But I digress. Even when the medical misinformation is not being forced upon you in such an aggressive manner, you better believe that it is still being forced upon you. Feeling sniffly? Must be the poussiere (dust). La poussiere derange (the dust bothers), especially during dry season, but not exclusively. Or perhaps it's le palu (malaria) qui derange. Because le palu is pretty much always deranging. Caught yourself a cold? You've probably been drinking water that's too "fresh"/ cold, or maybe it's just been too windy for your organism to support. Your white man organism is just not up to the grueling demands of the African climate. Or did you recently take a bus ride and leave your window open? God knows that'll do it. Or perhaps it's the poussiere still deranging. Or the palu. Feeling feverish? Your organism is not yet accustomed to the heat "chez nous" in Africa because heat like this doesn't exist where you come from. Or you know what? It's probably the palu. Sweating profusely? You've been drinking too much water- if you would just cut back on your weird, excessive white person water consumption you could stop sweating so much (and look slightly less gross). Or maybe- just maybe- it's the palu. Have a headache? It's probably that damn poussiere again. Or the palu. Probably the palu. Definitely the palu. Might I recommend that you find a traveling medicine peddler, those very trustworthy-looking men with mass amounts of illegible Chinese "medicines" strapped to the front of their one-gear bikes, and get you some palu compriments. TREAT YO SELF! The only loophole to this mass onslaught of medical misinformation is to catch a Cameroonian off-guard with maladies that they have never heard of: hit em with an "allergy." Crickets.

peace love and palu, y'all.