From NPR, this is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedanta.
In 2017, Oliver Herrera made a rookie mistake.
He works for the United nations, and he'd just arrived at a refugee settlement in Angola in southern Africa.
For the first few weeks he was there, Oliver went to sleep at night without a bed net.
Bed nets are a must to protect against mosquito bites and malaria.
About a month into his stay, Oliver came down with a fever.
I felt quite weak.
He urgently needed to see a doctor.
His organization arranged for a driver to take him to a local clinic.
When he got there, his heart sank.
There were dozens and dozens of people outside the clinic, some of them carrying kids, some of them sitting down on the ground.
The line stretched outside the clinic down the block, but Oliver didn't join the queue.
I cannot recall if the driver had a conversation with the nurse, but what I know is that they just walked me into the clinic, and I just sat down to wait for the blood test.
As dozens of other sick people waited their turn, Oliver saw a doctor.
Within minutes, he got tested.
He discovered that he did have malaria.
He was flown to another city for treatment.
Looking back, Oliver doesn't feel relieved that he got the care he needed.
He feels something else.