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Phoebe Powell
for the next year-and-a-half, running initiatives with 10 villages.
We organised nurses to do testing and health programs, and
also worked on sanitation campaigns – increasing the number
of latrines and rubbish bins they had, that sort of thing.
While I was there I got malaria twice. It feels like you’re moving
through concrete; you get an incredible headache that’s like
having a bowling ball in the back of your head. There’s fever and
exhaustion and diarrhoea, as well. If it’s not treated it can kill you,
but there are some very good treatments. Within half an hour of
taking them you can feel it regressing.
I also got a ‘jigger’ in my foot – that’s a sand flea that lives in
the dirt. When an unsuspecting barefooted host comes along,
it latches on and digs into the skin. The pregnant female swells
to about three times her body size and leaves her reproductive
organs in the hole she’s created. As you walk around, you’re
distributing her eggs. It felt like a blister, and I only noticed
it when it hadn’t gone away for two weeks. Ugandans are
very experienced with them, and my workmate removed it for
me – he got a sterilised safety pin and stuck it in my foot and
dug it out. The eggs are in the blister as well, so you have to
burn everything you’ve wiped your foot with.
And then I got schisto, or bilharzia, which is a waterborne
parasite that’s so small it swims through your skin and into your
bloodstream. There was a very beautiful watering hole that I knew
had schisto, but it was too good an opportunity – sometimes you
have to take the risk. I didn’t have any symptoms; that’s the thing
with parasites, you can carry them around and sometimes not
know you’ve got them.After I moved back to Australia, I worked with Engineers
Without Borders in Melbourne, and started reviewing comedy
shows. I also went to storytelling gigs and did spots, and after
two years I was ready to tell a joke. The first couple of times
I tried to do comedy, I couldn’t even get on stage – I walked
past the venue. I managed to get two minutes out the
second time.
Eventually, I wanted to see if I had what it takes to write
a whole hour of comedy. A friend suggested the title
Parasites Lost, and as soon as he said it, I knew the show
I could write. I could talk about the parasites I’d contracted;
how those parasites work; fun facts about parasites; and my
adventures and misadventures along the way in dealing with
them. I wrote it in 2016, and trialled it on an audience at the
Melbourne Fringe. It was terrifying, very much like parasites –
I guess that’s the attraction for me, and what draws me back.
After Melbourne, I did the Adelaide Fringe and then Melbourne
Comedy Festival – it sold out there, which I didn’t expect. But
it ticks the box of morbid fascination, and talking about poo is
usually funny. It’s an enormous act of faith in an audience that
when you share some of the uglier bits of yourself with them,
they’ll act with kindness and laugh rather than judging you.
So far it’s worked out.
One thing I’ve learnt through parasites is that we’re not the
independent organisms we think we are – we’re part of a much
broader ecosystem. We think we’re in charge of our bodies,
but so frequently aren’t. Sometimes it feels like we’re just
going along for the ride in these flesh vehicles of ours.real life