Most people recognize these two words of the Girl Guide Motto. I have known them since I was nine years old and whether you are a Girl Guide or not, those two words just make good sense -- especially when you are planning a trip.
It is just over a month now until I leave for India and I am in the midst of my preparations. I don’t think I realized how much prepping I would have to do! Not that I’m complaining, of course, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a bit overwhelmed. This is particularly true with regards to immunizations (refer to an earlier post to see my initial thoughts on this process). In the last four weeks I have been jabbed more times than in the rest of my whole life. Perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit, but I’ve lost count of the different vaccines I’ve needed in order to travel safely in India for 3 months; and I’m not even done yet. It looks like I’m also going to need shots for Rabies and Japanese Encephalitis A (which both come at a very significant cost!) – just to be safe, you see.
This is where I start to wonder if I’ve taken our lovely Girl Guide Motto and twisted it into something much less wholesome. When does “Be Prepared” go too far and become “Be Paranoid”? Is it when I’m considering the likelihood of encountering a rabid dog or monkey? Or perhaps the odds that I will be bitten by mosquitoes carrying horrible diseases? I generally do well in mosquito season out here, with only a token number of bites, but perhaps my foreign blood will be more appealing to the mozzies over there.
So, I have one week to do some reconnaissance regarding these final jabs in my arms to see if I can justify the costs. (Can I put a price on my life? I think I hear a MasterCard commercial playing in the background of my brain...) If I end up going ahead with these shots I may have to seek out a rabid monkey just to even things out. Just kidding.
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