I'm having an awful lot of trouble working today. The generator is broken and our backup generator isn't strong enough to run the air-conditioner. This day has so far sucked pretty badly because of that. I have been feeling ill and nauseas for the past several days and ran out of clothes to sweat through this morning, so I figured that since I was getting a ride to an air-conditioned office it wouldn't be quite so bad if I wore my grey, long-sleeved shirt. I look pretty good in grey. It was an ok plan: short car ride, wind in my hair, air conditioned office. I can deal with a long shirt.
But nooo, the generator broke and I'm sitting in a long-sleeved shirt next to two overheating computers, suffering from a fever and drinking a warm coffee to counteract the sleep-inducing Cold & Flu tablets I've been taking. I am sure that my back is beaded with enough sweat to make my smoking fashionable outfit look like grey and black tie-dye. I am sweaty. I have a headache. My eyes hurt, my frizzy hair feels like a pound of steel wool knotted on my head, I ate a chicken burger for lunch that is totally making a beeline for my ample hips, and we've run out of water.
Do you know what it means to run out of water when you are at work in Sierra Leone? It means that the locals who work with you (the nice ones whose names you can never remember) will go down to the well to fill a huge canister full of (dirty) water and set it next to the (cracked) porcelain wc, waiting for you to toss into the toilet after doing your business. In the meantime, this water will slowly pool around the broken toilet combining with dirt and dust to create a thick red mud that will get all over your new leather sandals. This water will also make embarrassingly loud sloshing sounds when you have to pour it into the toilet after taking a wee and you will try valiantly to pour the water out of the bucket very slowly so that it doesn't sound like you are having massive diarrhea (or hope that no one will know about it, anyway) and the result will be that your wee stays in the toilet no matter how many canisters you pour down those pipes and you will end up taking a ten minute "break" that you didn't really want all because you wanted to get rid of evidence peeing. And when you come out the bathroom someone will respond to your extended visit and the sloshing water and say, "Woah, you ok?" and you, with sweat beading your upper-lip and drenching your armpits, will smile too-wide and gleefully say that you are just fine, thanks!
It wouldn't be a big deal (since we're actually lucky to have had water in the first place) but when you have already decided that you are suffering from malaria, dysentery, giardia, the flu and rabies, you're drenched in sweat and emailing your dad to ask him to Fedex boxes of ciprofloxacin to you for Christmas, no-water is, like, totally not-fun. Combine no-water with no-air and it can seriously make you even more miserable than when you first acquired five life-threatening diseases. That was bad enough, but now...
Anyway. You know that I am totally miserable and really suffering from all my new diseases if I am writing a huge paragraph about bathroom visits and the inconvenience of no-water. Of course, the truth is, I just have really bad PMS.
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There you are, brat. I kind of assumed you had left. I'm glad you are not dead at least. Give me your email address. I was close to emailing your dad for it this week.
Merry Christmas too.
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