A-HA!

Virginia is the program manager I used to work for, a woman who has faith in my work (to the point that she has *strongly* encouraged me to apply for a job as a Child Rights Program Manager in a war-zone, no less, which requires experience that I simply don’t have, but which she insists I would be amazing at, which means more than I could ever express because she’s positively brilliant) and one of my favourite people in Sierra Leone. Virginia, I love you so much more tonight, because you suggested a brilliant idea about my mattress problem.

After commenting about the fact that “Geez, A-Lok, you seem tired - is everything ok?” I answered a resounding, guttural, whiny, lengthy “NOOOO, *I can’t sleep,*” to which she suggested that I do something very simple that I’d never have dared do without her permission: Switch my mattress with that of the other bed in my apartment. Duh, right? But I don’t actually have to pay for my living accommodations and “but that is the guest’s bed! And Temporary Roommate is returning this weekend! I can’t do that to her, she knows how terrible my mattress is...” Instead of agreeing that it would be rude, Virginia insisted that my health is paramount because of the simple fact that I actually have to sleep on the pseudo-concrete mattress every night, whereas Temporary Roommate is only there very rarely. “A-Lok, you need sleep. Badly. Switch the mattress,” she said. So tonight I did. Wish me luck, because I felt supremely guilty doing something so ridiculously simple.

PS. I was bitten by several mosquitos last night. Malaria Watch Countdown starts today: Day 1.