sick days

(march 28, 2008)

first of all, i am going to south africa in 3 weeks. 3 weeks! 21 days!

secondly, i am sick. again. what has happened to my immune system of steel? since i moved to kenya, i have been sick more often than i can count in my previous 26 years. this time it is a tuberculosis-type cough. i do not believe that i have tb, but i sound disgusting. and i am pretty sure my host in kigali gave it to me because i sound peculiarly like she did when she coughed up lungs.

i am sick on the coast of kenya. here i am beside the indian ocean surrounded by great italian food (did you know there is a little italy in kenya? there is, and it is full of perverts and old wrinkled up italians who are the equivalent of the canadian snow birds) and i have to be sick enough that after i finish my day of work i cannot even muster a walk on the beach! cripes.

to make this whole sickness feel worse, i am right now sitting in a conference room and it is 9:00am and i have no more than 6 of the people who are supposed to be attending my workshop today (out of a total of 30) that was to start at 8:30am. double cripes.

and, and! one man in my training told me yesterday that ‘in the african context, a commercial sex worker cannot be raped.’ grrrrrr....... i know many african women who vehemently disagree. but he felt the need to educate me on this fact, just so we were clear. i wanted to spit. on him. but i didn’t.

because then i was interviewed by 4 national newspapers and broadcast news stations. my only hope is that i did not sound ridiculous and that the shine off my forehead did not blind the viewers because this place is hot and i had to stand in the sun and melt while trying to sound intelligent. seriously, try that at home and tell me how easy it is.

the newspaper article can be found here