This is Beyond Threes

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To keep people posted on what i have just referred in my last entry to as a very 'interesting' week, here are a bunch of excerpts from emails/messages to people over the past week. It started off ok:

October 19th:

i hope everything is going great and you're adjusting to being back in calgary (for once!). i just thought i'd email you to say that my dinner went beyond excellently- the turkey worked out perfectly, no one got massively scalded, and everything was delicious and smooth sailing. it didn't even take that long for the turkey to cook- about 4.5 hours! i was expecting it to go wrong and take about 9... have no expectations, hope for the best, and you'll never be disappointed... anyway, i thought i would let you know.

i'm feeling very very overwhelmed lately. a combination of schoolwork hitting, doing nothing but cooking last week, and taking on this extra NGO responsibility is giving me the distinct feeling of drowning.

the sites, for your perusal, are www.makhad.org and http://itschoolsafrica.org/ the makhad website is cheesy to the extreme, and then the IT schools is the model that IT schools egypt is following. i'm acting as a project coordinator (kind of). like i said- slightly overwhelming.

i think i'll work my ass off this week and spend the weekend in the desert. everyone is frustrating and noncommittal, but they underestimate me in the way that they think i need their company to hop on a bus...

anyway, i need to go back to paddling like mad to stay afloat.

Stacey- email to my mom
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anyway, i'm slowly drowning here. everything is catching up with me, and i'm well... drowning. my natural instincts are to retreat, mixed in with some run away. if i was a fight or flight animal, it would be flight. avoid the problem at all costs.
... i've moved past the 'honeymoon' stage here, and just want to go home. i'll get over it after all this work subsides, but i'm not pleased with things.

-excerpts, message to my brother

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October 20th:

i had the hardest day today, since i came to egypt. since i came to africa, in fact.

the day started at 5. i had slept off and on since about 1- i figure i might have gotten about 3 hours of pseudo good sleep in there.

i have a cough that is waking me up in the middle of the night. the last time i had a cough that bad, it was pneumonia, and i was in argentina.

i was also awoken by the lightning fast mosquitoes that have mauled my body. i live next to the nile- apparently there are consequences. i personally preferred the 39 degree weather. i have about 20 on each arm, three on my face (including eyelid), 5 on each foot, and a couple on each leg. one decided that the maimed burned flesh looked particularly tasty.

i had 6 and a half hours of class straight. one prof mentioned that i might have had a midterm today, the other i had a sneaking suspicion that we'd have a quiz. i am immensely behind on all my work, as they assign university level amounts of work, but with a high-school insistence level that you've done all of it (through papers every week).

i also had a meeting with auc organizers for this ngo project i've been working on.

i have never been so thoroughly exhausted in my entire life. i spent the entire morning not to cry, the entire afternoon in a ridiculous angry delirium, and the entire evening again trying not to cry.

i didn't succeed in either my morning or evening efforts.

i'm having a very hard time, guys.

-message to friends

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not to take away what i just wrote, but to clarify:

what i'm having such a hard time with, is that egypt won't give me a break. in fact, it is shelling out the verb, not the noun: it's determined to break me. what with the initial university struggle, then the inability of me to pay my landlord and the subsequent harassment and loss of credit card, then the burns and surgery, and now schoolwork overload and this really bad cold, combined with what gives me more discomfort than anything else (the feeling of being continually itchy- and the mental consequences of the inability to sleep)...

one is left with only one conclusion: egypt is trying to break me. until now, it was only trying its best, but today it actually began succeeding.

wish me a good night's sleep and the hope that i'll feel foolishly tomorrow for today's 'overreaction'.

- continuation of the message to friends

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October 22nd:

i slept in- got up so late that i missed the shuttle going to campus, had to get a cab to drive me, we booked it there and got there in 40 minutes, which left me 30 minutes late for my midterm.

now, i just wrote a quiz for a reading which i did not do.

AH

-message to friends

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October 24th

Dr Thomas said to go to eye specialist ASAP. If you can only go to a walk in clinic....state the following

1) You have had something like this before. They may just give you an antibiotic that you use 4 times a day. Mention to them that you had this before and that
you have to treat it more aggressively....
Antibiotic: Flouroquinolon

Brand name for antibiotic: vigamox (new name in Canada) or ciloxan (older brand name)

USAGE: every 15 minutes for 6 hours (no you do not sleep)
every 30 minutes for the rest of the day
GO SEE DR again to see how it is doing

every hour for the next couple of days
GO SEE DR again

- email from my mom to me, after I called her, saying I was pretty sure I had infiltrates/ulcers again

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October 25th

had to email my profs to tell them the news. i should forward you a copy- the tone is a little bleak
it's really late, and i'm really tired. too much stuff to do, very bad internet connection

i'm thinking in 'you tarzan, me jane' dynamics.

i'm going to bed.

hopefully i will talk to you later. good luck on your papers and things. pray for my sanity, and mental and emotional health. in fact, just hope for the best for my health in general.

i'll try and keep you posted as best i can. for starters: my eye has a tissue-eating amoeba in it. and the white blood cells are attacking it. i'm never wearing contacts again; my vanity takes a blow. i'm in a lot of pain.

-message to friend that I had talked to earlier that day
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Well, in the ongoing saga that has been my Egyptian experience, I have
three corneal ulcers in my left eye. Essentially I have an amoeba in
there that is attacking the tissue, and then the white blood cells are
also breaking down my eye tissue. I am well aware that this is on top
of the 2nd and 3rd degree burns that I had, but I'm essentially
emailing all of you to make you aware of this fact, and to please ask
that you take it easy on me over the next week or two.

I hope that the treatment for my eye will not be longer than a week.
I might be able to come to class, or might not, depending on the level
of pain (because it is really quite painful). I will try my best to
make up for all the work that I will miss, but I was already
struggling in some classes to make up for the work that I missed from
the burn surgeries, I simply have to state that I will try my best,
but there are going to be some things that I am just not going to be
able to catch up on. I really really am praying that this will be the
end of my medical problems here: the hospital is becoming my second
home!

If you need any doctor's notes, please email me.

Thank you for your understanding, and hopefully I'll see you in class this week,
Stacey

-the email to my professors/TAs

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I'm having a really rough time here. I feel like I'm retreating into myself; turning myself numb to everything, because frankly, isn't it much easier that way? I'm taking whatever this country decides to throw at me, and I've given up fighting.

I'm very, very tired. The 'every 15 minutes' didn't help. at least now I can sleep. but I feel like it's gotten to be a little more than physical exhaustion.

I am very, very much in need of a break.

Stacey

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