Martha syndrome

I'm not the guesthouse manager... but...

When there are people around who need to be fed and watered and taken care of, I am simply incapable of not taking care of them. So it's now 9:24 pm, and I've been working since 7:15 pm to make sure people have been fed and watered to satisfaction, after working the whole day doing other things to make sure people have been fed and watered and have what they need. I like making sure people are happy and are taken care of, and I love being hospitable to people. But I need to make sure I don't tire myself out too much doing it!

So I DID get some "real" work done today, and yet part of the day also consisted of making a run out to the airport, picking up our maps at the UN, filling up the truck with diesel, picking up one of our old men from the cholera clinic and bringing him to his home across the river (and peeing behind a big rock on the way home!).

And then don't forget the tramping across the compound a few times to figure out what the security warning of the day was all about! Seems there are some disgruntled soldiers in the city again (don't want to get into the details of why!), but UN was advising everyone to stay in their compounds this evening. On the way to the cholera clinic, we saw some pretty exciting military action - lots of ammo getting pulled out of new boxes and stuff like that! We tried to keep it all pretty quiet so as to not worry our Americans here, but it was a little tense for a little while since no one really knew what was going on for a few hours this evening!

Then in between all of this, I'm answering strange questions about our drinking water, "Has anyone ever gotten dysentry from this water?" and trying to keep the drinking bottle water system going, since there are some folks here who are filtering their own water with their own filter, since they don't trust our filter! Oh well.. what can you do?! These folks here are really nice and well-meaning and I admire their guts for coming to a place like this, that's for sure.