Dude, where's my toilet?

When one is traveling or living in Africa, or elsewhere for that matter, they come to expect that the old GI track will be a little off from time to time. I had managed to avoid any signs of ill health up to this point, but it appears that something has made its way into my system. Yesterday morning I woke up a bit nauseous and sure enough my head was soon in the toilet. This morning it was the same. I am incredibly fatigued, have no appetite, and feel lousy overall. My work colleagues are encouraging the old malaria test, but the symptoms are more reminiscent of the giardia bug I had in Rwanda last year (which by the way lasted SEVERAL weeks). And besides, aren’t my anti-malarial drugs that I take every morning supposed to PREVENT malaria?

Despite feeling ill, I succeeded in my quest for an apartment; however I think I was perhaps overly anxious. After many delays and annoyances, the landlord hack sawed the lock off the apartment and let me in last night. The electricity was out. There is no furniture, save for my new foam mattress. I had managed to get myself a flashlight just a few hours earlier and was later thankful as it was one long, dark night in my concrete box. Now while I maintain that I am low maintenance, I have never claimed to be a real “roughing it” kind of gal. The only camping I have undertaken is the kind where you drive up to a little square plot, put up your tent and pull out the cooler. So I do have some minimum standards, and one of those being a TOILET. I felt my heart sink as I flashed a light into the bathroom, only to notice the hole in the ground. I didn’t want to admit this, but I got in the habit of planning my day around being able to use my nice Hotel Roma toilet – my horrible knees are my scapegoat. But I suppose when in Africa…So last night I hung out with my flashlight, on my mattress, eating just bananas and a few cookies for dinner.

So the place is empty. No toilet (in case you didn’t catch that), no stove, no counters or anything of the sort. A group of demobilized former LRA rebels are actually welding me a bed as we speak (at a price, of course). Catherine, of GWENET, is super generous and will loan me a table and some chairs, as buying furniture in Gulu is impressively expensive and unnecessary given the short period of time I will be residing here. This morning I finally figured out that everybody has electricity but me. I flipped some of the circuit switches, which resulted in a fizzing sound, followed by a flood of smoke and sparks - Oopsies! So I decided to call the landlord and am waiting as we speak for the electrician to show up and do his work (he was supposed to be there at 3 and it is now approaching 5, so it’s a good thing I didn’t leave work). I am not holding my breath and anticipate at least a few more nights in the dark on the ground. Perhaps I should have been a little more patient and remained in the hotel until everything was figured out. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Happy Birthday Caroline!