Farewell Fatigue

Now isn't it interesting what happens when you join 2 words that don't normally go together? How established meanings are completely transformed?

"Farewell Fatigue" is not a term I was familiar with until Friday when we had some drinks for a variety of people that are leaving SL next week. One of the girls I was chatting to mentioned that given that she'd been working in this field for a number of years she had developed the afore-mentioned syndrome due to the number of people that she had said goodbye to, and was now almost pathological in her aversion to any kind of adieu. Consequently I was only allowed to say "until next time"!

But for me whilst I'm not suffering from fatigue, I am really sad to be leaving some very good friends made in the short time here. Yesterday was a case in point with a sedate lunch in the sun at a local watering hole followed by goodbyes. The friends I'm talking about are probably those whose company I have enjoyed the most and with whom I feel we've struck-up a special connection. I know we'll keep in touch but given the industry it won't be easy. With that in mind, I only just managed to get outta there without crying! sniff

Tick Tock

Tick tock the clock is ticking. Only 6 days left in Sri Lanka for this little development worker.

It's been a rollercoaster ride full of thrills, spills, fine friends made, cultural misunderstandings and learnings, interesting work, boring work, confusion, sadness, sickness - you name it, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Feeling so much better after my brush with Dengue - you know that feeling you have after being seriously ill? For a short period of time you look at the world with fresh eyes and thank whomever for the simple things like having the energy to walk up a flight of stairs! Smelling the flowers, feeling the breeze on your skin, revelling in your capacity to go outside and get wet in the monsoon rain. All good.

So the last few days are hectic. Trying to catch up with friends that I haven't seen for the last 3 weeks due to being unwell; finishing off at work; winding up my animal rescues and hopefully providing them with ongoing safety and security before getting on the big bird next Friday morning for London and back to school!

Exciting times. End of one chapter. Start of another.

Peace man

At the risk of sounding like ageing hippies, we've got everything crossed at the moment - fingers, toes, arms, legs - you name it, it's crossed. In the name of peace (man).

You know things are hotting up when you turn your mobile phone on on sunday morning and all 5 text messages that you've received over night are from your employer's Security Manager. And here Security means Security and they have it for a reason. And when this guy says "don't go here, don't do this, tell us where your family are" then you do it.

I won't give you a litany of the rights and wrongs inflicted in the last 2 weeks, but as opposed to the odd landmine attack, it's now ramped up a notch or ten. We've had full-scale fighting with air-force missiles, naval missiles, suicide bombers in Colombo - it's on, and not only is it on here, it's on CNN which means it must really be on if we've penetrated the American media! (Thought, I wonder if the news is prefaced with a subtitle (like they used to have on Dallas) - Colombo, Sri Lanka, close to India)

An oddity: rumour has it that the current outbreak of violence has been timed to co-incide with the end of the school exams (how considerate)!

Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear Dengue-sickie, Happy Birthday to me.

To all of you who sent me wishes thank-you; to those of you who missed it - well there's always next year; and to me, my very own speedy recovery wishes.

It was a funny birthday - DY pulled out the stops with a new mobile phone (or at least the cash to get one) which put a smile on my face, and calls from my bro and parents as well as several email and text missives left me with a warm glow (or is that the remains of the Dengue?).

To celebrate, I took a stroll to the internet cafe - 1st time I've been anywhere except the hospital or the doctor's clinic in 2 weeks, and managed to annihilate myself - 300ms seems a very long way when you're in "recovery mode". So the rest of the day I wasn't up to much and luxuriated in the DVD set DY bought me - the 6th series of The West Wing - FABULOUS.

Bad food, no sleep and other people's relatives

Well it's been a long time between drinks, but I have an excuse and a jolly good one too - I've been in hospital with Dengue Fever.

The downside to my waxing lyrical about the beauty of the monsoon, is that of course the second the rain stops, out come those virulent little pests - the mosquitoe. And there's one particular kind of mosquitoe that spreads Dengue, but not dissimilar to the Scarlet Pimpernel, no-one knows which one he is. Surrounded by myth and intrigue he weaves a path of destruction through Colombo, particularly at this time of year. I of course am a mossie magnet, so have been (against all my normal principles) swatting everything that came near me. Everyone in the office has been looking at me strangely - I can just see them saying to themselves "Why is the Australian woman clapping again?".

But the clapping didn't work, 'cos one of them got to me. Apparently this year's been particularly bad for Dengue, with people dropping like flies, and yours truly was added to the list. So on Monday night was feeling somewhat dodgy, and managed to drag myself through half of one of Dunc's fabulous veggie stir fries before giving up. Never a good sign for me - if I can't eat, you know something's up. By 8.15 I was in bed, by 10pm Dunc attempted bed and decided to sleep in the spare room! There ensued a night of pain, hot and cold sweats, tossing and turning, vomiting, nausea and of course where would we be without D'ea to top it all off.

So got the Doc out, got the blood test people out, yup Dengue, nothing to do except, rest and drink water. Which I did for 2 days. Was by then so dehydrated that against my protestations I ended up in the local "private" hospital. Personally my view of hospitals is that they have bad food, you get no sleep, and they're full of other people's relatives, but I was by now too sick to protest.

I'll keep it quick, because actually you could write material for a tv series based on my short experience there, but suffice to say that life is full of learning. I've learnt (again) that I hate needles; I learnt new usages for the English language: "paining" is the commonly accepted term in the Indian sub-continent for anything hurting; I learnt that other people are pigs and have absolutely no concept of others; that the concept of communal can be stretched to the point whereby the patient you are sharing a room with has 25 relatives on her side of the curtain who are a) watching tv, b) chatting c) having a picnic d) answering their mobile phones e) not restraining their children f) "using" your bathroom .... the list is never-ending.

Anyway, I'm out now even if I did have to tell a few porky-pies to all and sundry to get outta there. And I've gotta rest, 'cos I felt like death yesterday, but did get my first night's sleep in a week, so things are looking up.