A bad day

So I want to pre-empt this by saying how much I love my project and my partner organisation, I do believe (like everyone does) that this is the best EWB project this year. However yesterday I had a bad day.

It started on Friday where instead of going to our usual food haunt called the “little old man in the small shop on the four corners roundabout” (we should really find out the guys name to make things simpler) we went to another shop/shack. I ordered my classic meat and rice thinking that nothing could go wrong but the sauce tasted a bit off to me, after a few bites I really didn’t want anymore. That whole day I felt a bit off. I wasn’t to the pebble dashing/ vomit stage but it did put me off my food. Unfortunately this coincided with our partner organisations trip to the capital Yaounde. Meaning that, Chris and I, had to sort ourselves out for the whole weekend.

So there I was on Saturday feeling a bit crap fixing my own breakfast and lunch which each time I eat or drank made me feel ill, but I thought it was a better option than to not eat at all. This is when I started to get low and missed home. This isn’t in the “I wish I was back in the UK” because honestly I don’t. I just wish some of the luxuries that I took for granted there could be here. I wish I could have gone up the road to a supermarket, 1 minute from my house, and brought a really nice sandwich or some pringles (because I love them even if they are ridiculously expensive now). I wanted to slob in front of the TV which had lots of channels instead of two that were entirely in French. I wanted to decide to have a shower and just go, not have to fill up and wait for a kettle to boil and then try to get the right combination of hot and cold water, using a flannel and a scrub and soap to wash. I didn’t want to have to keep applying bug replant spray, even though the little gits still managed to find places to bite me (above my nail on my middle finger right hand!). When I decided to watch a film on my laptop I didn’t want to have to go get the voltage box and plug that in and my laptop when the battery ran dry. for dinner I din't want cooked chicken, I wanted beans on toast! I wanted to go for a walk to the park with my dog, or go shopping or go into town and go to a gallery or to the cinema. Something that I can’t do here as they don’t have them and I’m not supposed to go places by myself, also everything is an hour’s drive away or more and I would rather not get in a local taxi.

Okay rant over (and mum relax) after a good night’s sleep I felt much better, full of life and excited for my next couple of months.

So why do you ask did I share this bump in an otherwise perfectly happy blog? I think it’s important for people to realise that, like Andrew said, things will challenge you. When you are ill and missing that favourite thing back home this is when you have to be strong, and even on an amazing trip/ project where nothing really has challenged you, YOU may provide the challenge. Also we tend to romanticise things and I want this to be a true account of what I’m doing and yesterday I had a bad day.