The joyous rhythmic choruses of a thousand voices woke me around 8:00.
You make that sound pretty remarkable. Was it? Or were you wishing for quiet to sleep longer?
I woke up pretty ill with no voice at all to sing or even talk at that point. My throat burned, my nose was gushing, and I was doing everything I could to not hack up a lung.
Oh dear. That doesn't sound good at all.
there was enough pressure coming out of the sink faucet for me to wash my hair. It's the little things.
Amazing how you can be so thankful for something that we just take for granted.
I do actually think about that from time to time. When I'm standing at the sink with the water running and just expecting it... I sometimes think that there are people who have never seen that. Walk miles everyday for a bucket of water.
I put my last set of clean clothes on and gave the laundry to the house help, hoping it’d be dry before we set out the next day for the villages.
I might hope that the laundry would come back... let alone come back clean or dry.
Being a Sunday and a day off, the house was full of people coming and going of all ages. Which may or may not have been significant in hindsight. I’ll never know.
Uh, oh. I suppose a later update will let us know what you mean by that.
Sometime during the night, my French press showed up
While sitting there, I became alarmingly light-headed. Enough that I actually became a bit concerned.
Oh boy. I suspect that you're the type of person who shrugs off stuff that others would be worried about. That doesn't sound good.
gingerly made my way down the death-stairs
With no railing... on slippery steps.... while light headed....
Yes, they magically helped me feel much better
That's good!
Later I would learn that it was the beginnings of a bigger problem, but for then, all was okay.
Oh, no....
And this too.... later update. I am getting pretty concerned.
It took the requisite hour to get to where we were going, of course, but along a different route than we’d been before, so it was refreshing to see a new part of Freetown on the way.
Nice that you got to see more of it.
In the hottest part of the day, in an enclosed, dusty, concrete bunker, with no food and a small bottle of water apiece
Ugh! Sounds awful!
and the RE-boxed up and organized.
What does RE stand for?
Or is that a typo for "and then re-boxed up and organized"?
Doors?
Around 2:00, we all had horrendous headaches and were light-headed due to dehydration and exhaustion.
I'm surprised you even made it that far without falling over.
It took a LONG time before he was back with some cold fries, cold fried chicken and fish and warm Cokes.
Cold fries? No. Cold fish or chicken... sure. I could choke down a warm Coke I guess, if I was dehydrated.
And that the food that had been brought back for us had been cooked the day before and put away for … later?? So, it was risk Salmonella or pass out from hunger.
It was cooked so I don't think I'd worry too much about salmonella after just a day.
Because it took us 6 hours to do what we had to do.
Man... Big job.
for reals his name is George Orwell!
Get out! I wonder if his parents knew or had a sense of humour or what?
“This must be worth a lot.” I replied with a, “Yes, about $150,000 worth.” The look on his face was priceless. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the dust in the warehouse that made his eyes a bit teary.
And my first thought was "That's a lot I could get on the black market."...
Granted I don't know George Orwell... although I have read 1984.... while 1984 was still a future date.
I have never been so thoroughly exhausted from heat, hunger, hard work, and being sick.
I was grumpy. And got a bit testy. (This is a part of the story I am not very proud of.) And I hate to admit it, I was not very nice.
Well, it's pretty understandable given the conditions and
your condition. I think you can cut yourself a bit of slack.
we had a good view of the supplies to send to our main donor as part of that documentation
That's nice that you did that for them. Was that requested? Or did you just think to do it so they'd know what they'd done?
“but I don’t want her in the photo.”
Eep! Good thing she
didn't hear! Hoo, boy.
My aunt shot me a look of disapproval and I did smooth things over later
With your Aunt, I presume. Since the nursing student hadn't heard you.
Yup. You don't look particularly pleased there.
(A fake smile for the donors)
That's a pretty convincing fake smile!
How will we ever know if you're authentically smiling now?
6 hours later:
Biiiig job!
We wondered if any of the folks who attended our seminar a couple days prior were enjoying some time on the beach with friends.
A lot of amputees.... Too many.
They don’t march in formation at all; they just go in a shapeless, random mass singing and dancing and talking. Any cars that need to pass just slowly drive right down the road in the opposite direction if need be.
Huh! That must've been something to see!
Or were you just feeling so sick, tired and hot that you just wished they weren't there so you could get back to your room?
Parades are fairly common occurrence come to find out and everyone just deals with it. I mean, what’s another hour on the road?
Sure! Why not?
Along the way home, there was an ice cream shop that the guys wanted to stop at. They didn’t offer to buy us any and I didn’t have any Leones with me, so had to forego. It would have been nice though.
Maybe since you didn't get one, they thought you didn't want one? Could you not have asked for one and said you'd pay when you got back to the hotel?
It is odd to be talked about in earshot while you understand some, but they don't think you do. It happened A LOT in Crapistan and it was fun to pipe up when you've heard enough.
I remember two old ladies sitting on a bus, cutting up everyone else. "Oh, look how that one's skirt is so short. And that one there has a torn shirt. And..."
All in their secret language of French...... which is not that uncommon here.
By the time we went back to our room, completely exhausted, I had no voice, the cough was worse, certainly due to the dust in the warehouse, and a fiery throat.
Oh, man. You don't sound like you were well at all.
Nevertheless, Bek and I reviewed our lessons by flashlight for the teaching we would be doing in the villages soon.
I'm surprised you had the energy to do that!
It wasn’t long before we were both sound asleep until the rooster crowed around 4:00 AM.
Far too early. You couldn't have been overly happy about that.
I also see how for many of my readers, the taking away of the characters was a deal breaker. I'm not into the characters, but can see how if that's something you look forward to, it'd be a bummer to have it taken away as an option.
But I did count around 10 times and one reader did post the answers by photo in the PM.
ANd to be fair, I honestly don't remember the exact words said, just seemed natural to join in. 
