in kinshasa.

i keep thinking about all these women in the world who have to go through their lives without access to treatment for UTIs, for yeast infections. It's so fucked up. This morning i was practically passing out with pain from cramps, and 2 naproxens later, I'm functional at a meeting. It should be the easiest thing to make this stuff accessible, and yet it isn't even close to being available, let alone affordable.

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We drove through catastrophic flooding yesterday. The driver picked me up at 6am and it was immediately apparent that things were very very wrong. We didn't get any water in our car, a 4x4 designed for tough conditions, but it was tense. Lucky me, i didn't have to walk through it, but lots of people did. Water up to my waist in places, and flowing fast like a river. Probably it was unsafe and we should not have been driving. I haven't seen the news but it felt like a disaster. Per my last entry, again, watching climate change in the most vulnerable places in real time, and fuck. Again. I'm fine, obvs.

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Got caught in my room yesterday doing meetings over lunch, and my team kindly sent food up to me but ugh terrible - fatty beef, an egg and tuna salad with canned corn in mayo that i feared would kill me, oily smoked fish. I think my team told them i was the boss and they better feed me, so the servers brought these huge bowls of food and i felt obliged to serve myself since they'd made the effort. But i did. not. want. to. Already felt nauseous and a bit fragile from the aforementioned cramps. Seems like the height of privilege to refuse to eat. I ate. Mangosteen for dessert tho. That was good.

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After the interviews, I took an hour and hung out with my heating pad and a mystery novel. It has been a lot, and all in French. Physically and emotionally and mentally, I am feeling tapped. I can't believe what a difference it makes, on these long trips, to have R offering unconditional support from far away. It is so disorienting to be hopping all over the place, but i know he's at home and that I will be there soon. He is so solid. What a gift to have someone I can trust so completely. Completely life-changing. I am so lucky. It's all I can think to myself, again and again and again.

12:50 p.m. - 2022-12-14