My First African Malady

Given all of the awful diseases, bug bites, and life-threatening fungi that I read about before coming here, I expected something bad to happen to my body on a weekly (if not daily) basis. I passed the first few weeks unscathed. Then it hit me. Last Sunday, I had tremendous pain in my upper right arm. I could barely even move it forward to shake someone's hand. It was as if I had torn my arm muscles lifting, but I have not been working out since I got here. Monday night it was still not better. I talked to some people who said it might be a potassium build up (which could easily be a possibility given how many mangoes and bananas I've had since coming here). It wasn't until the bus ride back from Kumasi--when I played through my actions of the weekend--that the mystery was solved: it was something that I did at Lake Bosomtwe. It wasn't swimming, because I really only floated. It wasn't the canoe ride, because I wasn't rowing. It wasn't parasites, because those take a few weeks to catch on. It was the twenty-five minutes that I spent skipping rocks. Apparently, I have not worked my rock-skipping muscles in a long, long time.....and my arm more or less revolted for a few days. But it feels all better now! Thus far, this is the only malady I have suffered while in Africa--something that could just as easily have happened at Lake Cochichewich.