Josh 1 Yellow Fever 0

As many I know are anxiously awaiting my itinerary, I do have an update on my travel plans.  Since I have now mailed, emailed, telegraphed, and courier-pigeioned most of the dissertation of forms required for Peace Corps service, they were nice enough to let me know when I will be leaving.  Come July 6, I will be in the luxurious Holiday Inn Georgetown in Washington, D.C. for a one-day orientation which I'm pretty sure will mostly consist of telling us to not do any of a number of stupid things which might lead to permanent dismemberment or death (Note to Mom: I am already aware that hitchhiking in South Africa is a bad idea).  Bright and early on July 7, me and my fellow volunteers will be whisked away on a shuttle to a clinic where we will be stuck with an untold number of needles to properly vaccinate us, at which point we will proceed to Washington Reagan Airport, sore arms and all, for our departures.  My flight leaves at 4:00 pm for Johannesburg for all those wanting to bring flowers and gifts.  Beyond that I am unsure, aside from the fact that somehow I am supposed to get to an as of yet unamed village in either the Mpumalanga or KwaZulu Natal province.

Unfortunately, as I am not yet in South Africa, the only other tidbits and oddities of life that I have to offer right now are those of my beloved homeland, the good old US of A.  As mentioned above, I will be receiving what I am guessing will be a number of vaccinations required before heading out to South Africa.  However, this past week I received an email from the Peace Corps labeled "Urgent".  Expecting another onslaught of forms, I begrudgingly opened it to find that apparently South Africa requires you to have proof of a vaccination for yellow fever at least 10 days prior to you entering the country.  At first, I had a WTF moment as it seemed like surely this was something the lovely folks in DC should have known about and informed me of umm, I don't know, earlier than 3 weeks prior to departure.  Upon further research though, the requirement was only recently implemented, so government and bureaucracy jokes will have to be saved for later.  As in later in this post.

With the knowledge that I needed to get myself some yellow fever protection ASAP or risk having an uncomfortable conversation with immigration in Africa, I duly called up my local healthcare providers.  Wouldn't you know, most Americans are not overly concerned about the disease, so it is not widely available and certainly not in Huntsville, Texas.  Thus, I duly got on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website to find the nearest available Yellow Fever shot, which our wonderful government health agency listed as a RediClinic in an HEB in Conroe.  I called up the number of the RediClinic only for there to be no answer.  After several tries, I finally called the number of the HEB itself to find that the RediClinic had in fact shut down and the CDC just hadn't bothered to update the website.  Government and buraucracy jokes may now commence.

I soldiered on to call the next CDC number, a doctor's office also in Conroe, only to be informed that yes, they do carry that vaccine sometimes, but no, it's not in stock right now, and no, they don't have any idea when they're going to get in a new shipment.  Awesome.  CDC number 3 replied happily that yes, the vaccine was indeed in stock, but the doc was on vacation, and they wouldn't be able to see me until sometime the following week.  At such time, they would charge me $120 for the vaccine plus a mandatory $50 to see the doc because apparently nurses able to give shots don't exist in Conroe.  I said thanks, but no thanks and went on to CDC number 4, a clinic just north of The Woodlands (would that be north The Woodlands or The north Woodlands?).  They also had yellow fever vaccines and also charged $120 but magically had also managed to locate nurses capable of administering the thing for which there was no extra fee.  I got the vaccine the next day along with a very cool World Health Organization documentation card.

Thus, the yellow fever odyssey ended as all true American Dream stories should, with success as the result of hard work and determination.  So take that South African immigration.