Its a pregnant world: Strange Illness

An outbreak of a strange illness hit a little village in Rural Kenya. People could be seen scratching, as though having had been bitten by bugs. Others had running stomachs. Everyone was scared. This strange disease baffled even the village medicine man. None of the villagers wanted to be a victim.

And so when John woke up one Sunday morning feeling sickly, he immediately alerted his newly wed wife, Naliaka. Naliaka, enjoying her second month in marriage, was scared for her husband, and also wondered what the villagers would think. ‘They may say I do not take care of him. This is supposed to be our honeymoon period, but here he is, sick.’

She insisted on escorting him to the village dispensary. She did not want any one to suspect that John was coming down with the illness. The neighbours might stop visiting, she thought to herself.

On getting there, it seemed as though the whole village was waiting to be attended to by the lone doctor. Naliaka felt distressed. What was the solution? By now John had admitted to having a running stomach, although the scratching—which he knew would follow—had not started yet.

As they waited on the old benches in the hospital garden, they saw the doctor, looking all tired and worn out catching some air. Naliaka ran to him and pretended to be telling him something really important. All she was saying was that her husband was extremely unwell and needed urgent attention. Apologizing for the long queue, the tired doctor attended to John. After seeing him, the Doctor felt that John was still strong enough to go home and return for a review the following day. He gave John a tiny glass bottle and asked him to bring a sample of his urine during the review.

Once back home, John put the bottle under the bed. Early the next morning he filled it with his urine and left the bedroom to go have breakfast.

Naliaka was busy with household chores when she accidentally knocked over the small bottle. John had incidentally forgotten to screw back the lid. The urine splashed on the floor.

Knowing her husband’s hot temper, and not wanting to start their marriage on a quarrelsome footing, Naliaka cleaned up the mess but made sure to replace the urine—with her own! After all, she was sure her husband was okay, seeing that he was now regaining strength.

Later that morning, the doctor could not believe the test results. Could this be true? He had to ask John to go get his wife before he could share the findings.

From the look on the doctor’s face, John thought he had contacted leprosy. ‘Are doctors supposed to be so obvious?’
he wondered aloud.

When Naliaka and John were finally settled for the news, the doctor announced. ‘John, it’s unbelievable—you are pregnant!’

Naliaka beamed with a smile, and turned to reveal to her husband what had happened that morning. John was already sprawled on the floor—he had passed out!

END:PG16/59