when one thing goes it all seems to go...

This morning at around 4am a battle commenced between something I ate last night and my body. I’m not all together sure exactly what their disagreement was, but it was definitely a heated argument (or maybe it was just me that felt hot!). The battle continued until 6am with repeated trips to the latrine, these times not worrying or having the time to be bothered by the cockroaches that like to lurk there in the night. From 6-7am I pleaded with the two parties to come to some sort of a peaceful arrangement, but to no avail. So packing my bag (and myself) full of Peptobismal and immodium, plus some bread and water with the hopes that I might tempt eating something this morning, I headed off to work. But not without one last visit to my not so good friends the cockroaches (latrine).

As I leave I muster up the energy to shake hands with the neighbour’s kid, it’s hard to resist a little guy less than 2 years old who gets so excited to see me that he waddles towards my bike trying to say tubabu. My energy dwindled after that and I didn’t wave, as I normally do, to all the choruses of tubabu from kids I pass on my way to work. Peddling I felt like the road had slanted the other way for a change, isn’t it normally down hill? I hit a small bump and lost a screw on my basket, which began to dangle and swing. Now one hand on the basket and the other steering the bike, I’m sure I am going to be late! I arrive at work; force a smile for the woman who sells fried potatoes in front of the office. She has always been really nice to me, helps me with my Dioula and has no need to know the state I’m in. Now I feel like I’m sweating like a polar bear in the desert! Why the rush? Why not stay in bed? Sounds like a reasonable question and a great idea. Well…because today is of course the day that I have to meet the big boss who has come all the way from Ouaga. I have been working with the Bobo branch and we are having a meeting to go over my contribution to the organization for this next year.

The one thing that kept me going is that I knew that this situation would pass (in more ways than one) and by the next day I should be healthy again.