I love talking about parasites – that moment when an audience
gasps, that sense of tension when you can feel them shrinking in
their seats, and the release when they laugh. But if anyone told me
10 years ago that I’d have a comedy show based on the parasites
I’d picked up while working in public health, I wouldn’t have
believed them.
I come from a long line of teachers, so there was a bit of an
expectation that I would be one too, but the greater world
beckoned. It took a while to find my path: my first degree was
in history, and I thought I was going to go into nuclear policy.
I was enrolled in a masters in international security studies,
and shortlisted for a scholarship, but missed out. The people
organising the scholarship told me to go out and explore the
world, so, after backpacking for a while – including a job in Ireland
calling newsagencies to see if they needed more scratchies –
I found myself in Cambodia doing an internship with UNIFEM
[United Nations Development Fund for Women].
One thing we were working on was trying to set up a textile
factory enabling women with HIV to work. It was the first time
I’d really been aware of public health, which involves finding
ways to work with communities to stop disease before it happens.
On a human rights level, I felt in my gut it was the right pathway,
and something I wanted to be involved in.
Cambodia was also where I encountered my first parasites –
giardia and blastocystis. They’re both amoebic parasites you
contract through drinking contaminated water. For five months
I had explosive diarrhoea and vomiting. I was working in a tiny
office, and the boss sat just outside the toilet door – you get fairly
intimately acquainted with your workmates in that environment.
It’s so amazing how you can adapt to a new type of normal. It was
embarrassing, but I also found it funny. My friends would get sick
as well, and discussion of poo was a very common topic.Giardia is a bit hard to get rid of. You take a broad-spectrum
antibiotic that blasts your intestines. The antibiotic is like a
bomb you send through the system, and for months afterwards
I couldn’t eat wheat and dairy because the bacteria that do the
work had been killed off. Even before I had giardia, though,
I was morbidly fascinated by parasites. Their entire biology has
been harnessed over millennia of evolution to take advantage of
another organism, and without that other organism they can’t
survive. It’s bizarre. It’s sort of a ‘train crash’ thing – I’d find
ways to read more about parasites and horrify myself. I’m really
interested in gut flora and gut bacteria, too – many bacteria are
also our friends.I came home from Cambodia to study the masters of international
public health at Sydney Uni, and then took myself off to a small
clinic in eastern Uganda. For part of the time, I got a placement
with an Anglican diocese in Kenya, and worked in health education
with the church community. It was difficult, because after I’d
talk, a preacher would get up and tell everyone that condoms
were made in cold countries, and when they were brought to hot
countries, the heat would crack them. Also, alcohol turned women
into lesbians, because women would never be attracted to other
women without the devil’s brew. It made me realise that, while
the need was great, I was swimming upstream. So I went back
to Uganda and worked with a small public health organisationalanta colley has a feeling in her gut – that public health
education and poo jokes make perfect companions.
AS TOLD TO LETA KEENSeverybody
has a story
real life