“I was like, ‘I’m in Africa, I want to go adventure,’ so I was always out, leader of the group, running around exploring things,” CHS sophomore Christine Burris said. “They’re guessing I might have been exposed to [malaria] more than once, just because I was always off on my own.”

On June 6, 2015, the Burris family traveled to Ethiopia. “I went there for part business, part vacation,” Christine said. “My dad was doing some work for Lonely Planet, so he writes about places to go when you’re traveling.”

“We flew to Africa from Washington D.C. It took us about three days to get to Ethiopia, and when we got off the plane there, it took us about an hour to get through customs, getting our visas,” William Burris, Christine’s father, said. “We went north to Mekeilah. It was the lowest dry place on the planet. When we were there, it was about 128 degrees.”

Christine, her 11-year-old brothers Connor and Benjamin, and William Burris experienced the living situation of the locals: “We got in that evening and crashed at kind of a hotel, more of a hostel — no air conditioning,” said William.

Unfortunately, a few days into the trip, Christine starting experiencing symptoms that, unbeknownst to her, were typical of malaria.

“We stopped at a hotel to get food that was safe to eat and I ended up passing out. I collapsed and was throwing up all over the place, and that’s when we decided that something was very wrong,” Christine said.

Conditions were not much better in the hospital they stayed at. “We pulled in and it looked like a Hotel 6 that had been abandoned years ago … It was pretty dirty, pretty rough, but that was the hospital — the nicest hospital,” William Burris, Christine’s father, said.

“When we pulled up, I honestly thought that we’d made a wrong turn,” Christine said. “We ended up getting triage because there was like a 50 person wait, but all of them were fine and we were getting carried in.”

Fortunately, a World Health Organization doctor who studies malaria was in his last week of volunteering at the hospital.

“They didn’t have the supplies there to take a blood test … but they diagnose four cases of malaria a day, so he was like, ‘It’s malaria,’” Christine said.

Christine was put on an IV for hydration and was given several injections.

“I was pretty worried about AIDS and other infections, so I wanted to make sure every needle was [sanitary]. I saw every needle come out of the package. They thought I was a little bit of a jerk,” William said. “And I wanted to take pictures of every medication they gave us in case something went wrong and they [doctors in America] asked me ‘Well, what did they give you?’”

Over the course of the following 24 hours, both William and Conner were also diagnosed with malaria and were given proper treatment, although the disease had not progressed as it had in Christine.

“The doctor gave me his number and said if anybody gets sick just call at anytime …  I needed medication at midnight. I was really cold and I had trouble getting to sleep. I had a fever, too, and then I realized that I probably have malaria, too,” William said. “I called him and he came to the hotel, but I ended up going to the hospital instead because I needed an IV and some blood work.”

Although the Burris family no longer felt the effects of the disease when returning home, they remained cautious.

“We white-lied through customs, because they didn’t ask if we had been sick so we didn’t bring it up, but when we got back we talked to our pediatrician and my doctor and just let them know,” Christine said.

“The CDC totally pounced on us the second we got back,” Christine said. “[The] CDC doctor said to come see them if they have fever in the next year because it could be malaria,” William added. One strain of malaria has been found to be able to survive in the liver for up to a year following malaria exposure. However unlikely, this remains a possibility for the Burris family.

“CVS actually told us that we wouldn’t have to worry about malaria where we were going, because it is so hot there that there weren’t going to be any bugs,” Christine said. “In the US, there’s not a lot of education on malaria because it’s not a problem here. In the village we were in, malaria is the top killer in children, and a lot of people can’t afford the drug to fix it.”

In addition to not having the financial means to afford the drugs, many hospitals, including the one Christine was treated in, are unable to do blood tests locally because of a lack of microscopes.

“I’m going to try to start a fundraiser to get a microscope sent to the hospital where I was [treated],” Christine said. “They don’t have even a basic medical microscope which is the reason why a lot of the kids there die from malaria because they don’t know whether it is malaria or not.”

Despite the setback from the malaria, the Burris family still thoroughly enjoyed their trip.

“I definitely would go back in a heartbeat,” Christine said. “It was life changing. When I think about the trip I don’t think about getting sick, because it went by so fast that it didn’t really affect me.”

In Ethiopia, the Burris family encountered a culture and value system very distinct from what they are accustomed to in the United States.

“[One woman asked], ‘Who cooks the food?’” William said. “I said, ‘Well, I cook the food.’ And they all gasped. They said, ‘It’s so shameful that you would cook!’ Men don’t do any kind of domestic work in Ethiopia.”

“It’s interesting to see that life’s pretty tough in other parts of the world,” William said. “Even on the first day Benjamin got sick he could barely walk. The sergeant, the head of the military officer kept offering to carry him, and he said ‘No, no, I’m fine.’ And finally [the sergeant] said, ‘You know,  you’re not just tough, you’re Africa tough.’”

“If [people in the village] were sick like we were, it didn’t matter. They still had to get up and go to work,” William said. “If you don’t work, you don’t eat. If you don’t eat, you don’t live.”