Emily's Worldview

I'm always getting disqualified for donating blood in the US for silly reasons; for being anemic, for having a cold. I've been summarily dismissed the last few years for having spent too much time in Africa, which apparently puts me into some kind of relatively high risk group for HIV.

Here in Western Kenya, I am in a relatively low risk group, but when I tried to donate today on my lunch break (at the state of the art transfusion center that shares our compound), I was rejected again. This time it was my malaria prophylaxis, but the lady was nice about it: "Come back and donate sometime when you are not on drugs."