i'm trying to go home tonight. these are the obstacles that have been thrown in my way in the last 12 hours:

1 uncovered manhole. (through some ninja reflexes, i managed to brace myself on the narrow sides as i went down so i didn't hit bottom, but i'm still covered in bruises and scrapes, and i got an unhealthy dose of sludge)
1 eritrean volcano, which led to cancellations of yesterday's flights from @ddis. No word yet on tonight's flights. Looks scheduled so far. Fingers crossed.
1 airline strike at my destination. this is just going to mean general mayhem if I have to reschedule anything because of the above volcano. Good to know we can officially add volcano to the ever-growing list of hassles when flying. Did not see that one coming.

and as if all this was not bad enough, as of this morning I will add:

1 bout of food poisoning. If i do manage to get on the plane, it's going to be a miserable trip.

And yet... i'm so calm. I have 0 control over any of these things, so just watching and waiting (and hydrating).

*

we went for dinner last night at a friend's place and when we got there, her 6-year-old had just spiked a fever of 105. So scary here, as there is no 24 hospital and, to be honest, the doctors are generally not so good. The foreign ones, especially, in my opinion. I think the local doctors are better, but the labs, etc., are a nightmare. It's all about who you know, and i have the number of an excellent local doctor saved in my mobile, and we called him at 10pm and he answered all of our questions... for free. because he is kind.

I keep thinking about the future.. i want to keep doing this work, but would i want to have a family in this environment? People do it all the time, both locals and ex-pat staff, obviously. I can't see BT thinking it's a good idea, although he does continually surprise me.

8:47 a.m. - 2011-06-15