Two weeks to departure

(An elephant. Probably in Africa. Photo via Peo Pea on Flickr because I started my Botswana blog before I got there.)

Done taking my typhoid pills! And, remarkably, I have developed neither typhoid nor a life-threatening allergic reaction (yet). Congratulate me!

Still have hep A and tetanus shots to go (keep putting them off), and need to pick up malaria pills, cipro...the list never ends. Medical expenses have been by far the most difficult thing to plan for this trip. I have no health insurance right now (since I have no full-time job), so I had to buy short-term insurance to cover emergencies for the summer. Then I had to buy separate international health insurance (also only covers emergencies).

I called my bank, which offers health insurance, and is also a good bank full of nice people. They transferred me to the third party that sells their health insurance. Then the health insurance company transferred me to the third party that sells their international health insurance. Then the international health insurance company sold me health insurance via a third party marketer. By the end of the conversation, I wasn't talking to someone nice from my bank. I was talking to Chris from Ohio who was brusque and didn't care if I'd always maintained a healthy balance in my savings account.

On top of that, you have to read through the company's policies, and they want you to think about things like the repatriation of your remains, which I assume is a small ceremony involving a flag and a justice of the peace. I really do not like to think about my remains. It gives me the heebie-jeebies to even type that I don't like to think about them. I don't mind thinking about being horribly injured, but dying is another thing, because if it's too late for me then why did I spend so much money on health insurance?