3 months had gone by in the blink of an eye and as sad as I was at the thought of leaving all of my new friends and the chimps , I was also anticipating going back home and seeing my family. I had spent most of the days running tests on ants. I had seen more nests and trails then I would have ever imagined, and had overcome my fear of ants. I felt good with all of the data I had collected and felt accomplished. Looking back at everything that happened over the last 9 months was so surreal and I only then realized just how quick time passes. One day while my assistant and I were in South camp performing tests on an ant nest, I realized I had left something in my backpack which was at a safe distance away from the nest. As I was climbing over and on top of these huge dead trees that had fallen over I instantly felt very dizzy and fell over on a log. When I had stood up from my blackout , I felt very hot and nauseous and sat down to regain my balance and composure. When I looked behind me I thought to myself how lucky I was to have fallen where I did instead of 5 meters away into the ant nest. My assistant came up to me and asked me if I was okay. I explained to him that I was not feeling good and would like to stop the experiment and head back to camp. We packed up our stuff and walked to camp. The rest of the day I laid in my bed sick with a migraine and hot flashes. I felt miserable and did not recognize any of the symptoms. The next morning I headed to North camp to finish up on my ant trials, but when I arrived I went straight to my bed and passed out until the next morning. I had lost my appetite and had to visit the bathroom every 15 minutes for the next 3 days. I became dehydrated and white as a ghost. I knew that there was something serious so I arranged for a car to pick me up and take me out of the forest and to the city of Abidjan 15 hours away. I could only pack half of my items and was not able to say goodbye to everyone and the chimps. Just as I was about to leave, one of the assistants came up to me and told me that one of my favorite chimps had just given birth to a tiny baby. He asked me if I would like to name the chimp , which I did right away. I decided to chose the name Breeze, since his mother and siblings had names that started with a B as well. Just as I had thrown my bags in the land rover the chimps in the North territory started to call so loudly and close that I felt like they had come to say goodbye. The timing was so perfect and put a big smile on my face. As we drove away I wanted more than anything for the chimps to walk across the road, but I couldn’t have everything. I arrived in the local village of Tai to meet up with our sister project who works in the city. Luckily they were in the area and agreed to bring me to the city. I squeezed into the back of the car with a long trunk and two benches which faced each other. There were about 5 of us on each side and to make things even more interesting we had to make leg room for a box of chickens. I sat at the end with my head out the window and slept for most of the long bumpy trip. When we reached the city I was starting to feel better and after another night of rest , I headed to the doctor first thing in the morning. The doctor took a blood sample from me and concluded that I had Typhus/Typhoid fever. He then gave me some antibiotics to take and told me to drink a lot of water. In the two weeks that I had this sickness I had lost almost 20lbs and could see my ribs sticking out of my chest. I had these huge dark circles under my eyes and my skin was a weird yellowish color. After I had healed I spent most of the days stuffing my face with mangoes and cheeseburgers at a local shopping mall. On my last day in the city, the BBC film crew had come back to finish filming, so we all went to eat and say our goodbyes.
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