Sylvia's Journal

On Friday I wrestled with my sore throat but otherwise felt OK, able to do some work at the office in the morning and be productive in the afternoon.

As I drove through town I was surprised to see that the standard taxis are Renault 4Ls and Deux-Chevaux – all cream-colored and most seeming in good to excellent condition. The Renault 4L was my first car – it is one step up from the Deux-Chevaux in terms of simplicity – a far cry from our newly leased Subaru Impreza.  My last Renault of that type was stolen in Senegal, just weeks before we shipped out. I waxed nostalgic seeing so many here.

During the night my sore throat developed into a terrible sinusitis which produced painful pressures on my teeth, my ears and my forehead. I woke up miserable on Saturday morning and resolved that this time I was not going to assume my problems would go away and repeat the Burkina experience. My colleagues mobilized a doctor who came to check me out in my hotel room and confirmed my self-diagnosis.  She wrote four prescriptions which I was able to fill immediately at the ‘Pharmacie du Roi’ in the adjacent shopping mall. The consultation and the prescriptions cost me the equivalent of 64 dollars, half for the doc and half for the pharmacy. I am now taking an antibiotic, something to drain my sinuses, something to reduce the inflammation of my ears and syrup to turn my raspy dry cough into a productive one.

On Sunday I felt much better already and continued to recuperate by taking a very long nap in the morning and in the afternoon. I was able to complete my homework for the weekend.  I am confident, after one more good sleep that I will be able to return to work and be fully present tomorrow when I will meet with my team and put the finishing touches on the design of our workshop with NGO executives.

I am glad there was the weekend to recover – unlike my previous trips where I had to go to work immediately. Still, it pisses me off that I have now had two consecutive bad experiences travelling in planes. Although I brought masks, and used one most of the time, something must have squeezed in during those periods that I had taken my mask off.  Maybe it is my inability to sleep that lowers my defenses; not being able to sleep is a problem when a trip takes 24 hours door to door. Maybe I should be interrupting my trips, cut them in two with a good night sleep in between in a capital somewhere in Europe.