Laying Low

Yup, after the adventures of Thursday evening, I got a little sick. Woke up on Friday morning and couldn't leave the house. Haven't gone too far from a bathroom ever since! I will spare you the details. I think my immune system must be a little on the weak side or something these days, since this is the second time in two weeks that I've needed some serious antibiotics to clear up some sort of funky infection. And I've lived in this place for three years now without too much difficulty! Is it possible that a place just wears you down after a while?!

Anyways, yesterday, since I didn't leave the house, I ended up having a really relaxing day, just hanging out on facebook (love the fact that I get wireless internet from my bed!), and watching episodes of the West Wing. I'm almost finished up through Season 7 - that's as far as I have. I guess it's still on in the normal outside world? Which season does it go up to? It did feel rather odd knowing that the rest of the compound was carrying on their normal business whilest I layed on my bed, sweated through a fever and took numerous trips to the bathroom.

In the evening, I managed to make it to the dinner table, since my housemates and nieghbors had put on quite the spread - a pancake feast, along with a beautifully presented platter of avocado and tomato salad. It was lovely, but I must admit, I wasn't great company. I knew I must have been pretty sick yesterday because I wasn't hungry the entire day. All I ate from sun up to sun down was a few biscuits (sorta like arrowroot cookies), a slice of avocado, and a tiny finger banana. For dinner, all I had was a pancake - the dutch kind - with a bit of syrup, some more avocado (man, I think I could live on those things, sick or not!), and a slice of orange. Richard has just returned from Uganda, bearing huge baskets of fruit (so yummy and fresh!) and has been making fresh juice for the past few days, so I've been drinking amazing amounts of that, as well!

I was meant to go shopping today and then to the tailor with a friend today. It's one of my most favourite-ist hobbies here. I just love fabric shopping, enjoying all the beautiful colours and patterns of the fabrics- real eye candy! And then choosing a design and style for a new dress... especially if it's for someone else, I can have a bit more fun with it :)

But I decided the market probably wasn't the best place for me (not exactly a plethora of bathrooms over there!) today. So I had to cancel :( But I was well enough to go and enjoy the lantern festival that my German friends had prepared for this evening. Apparently, in Germany, around this time of year, all the children make lanterns and then wander through the streets singing lantern songs as the dark of the winter decends upon them. My German friends have three little children, and they have Swedish friends here who have a 2 year old daughter, and then I brought Becka, our 11 year old American neighbor, so it was a bit of a children's event tonight!

It turned out great - though, as usual, not according to plan! Just as we were setting the table to have a nice lantern-lit meal outside... it started to rain! It's not supposed to rain at this time of year! But rain it did. So we quickly moved everything inside. Unfortunately, the rain also meant we couldn't play the planned outdoor games (like flashlight tag!), but we did still get to play some indoor games, learn some German lantern songs, and then just before it was time to leave, the rain stopped and we were able to wander around the compound, carrying the lanterns and singing the songs.

It was really fun to be surrounded by real "families" with children again. There are so few expatriate families here, and even the local folks that I work with have chosen to keep their families in neighboring countries, because the schools are better there. So there just aren't any families around that I can hang out with. It was so much fun to hold a little baby and read stories to the other children tonight! So I definitely felt special that I was included in such a lovely evening. I'm also glad my antibiotics have kicked in fast enough so I could go along! It's also just a lot of fun to be together with people from different cultures, even within the African culture in which I live, I've really learned so much about other Western cultures - Germans, British, Swedish, New Zealander, South African... the list goes on and on! And I love it!