Little Miracles

I've been sick again. Who is to blame? Find him for me. He needs to be scolded and reprimanded. Alex and Emil, here's a game for you nerdie doctors. Guess my condition based on my drugs: Paracetamol, Flagyll, Famotidine, Ciprofloxacin. GO! First one to get it gets to French kiss me when I get back to Sweden. That's on the 9th of August dear folks. Can't wait.
If there's one thing that sickness does to you (except traverse the extreme edges of the Bristol Scale) it is miss home. You become weak, drift into dreams and back in time. Maybe it's the drugs but I've been an emotional little baby. Emotional scenes in X-men 3 (bootleg dvd) made me tear up, Finding Neverland pushed a tear out of my eye down on the actual cheek...And then Little Miracles -- a reality tv show about little kids battling against deadly diseases -- just about brought me over the edge. Before you count me out, please know that these were no mewling, fetus position, primal bohoo sessions here, I still keep it real, but still --> hard times on Randall Street.

Going to the hospital here was a story in itself. I was in bad shape, no question, but I was still miles away from other patients. People wait longer here to go to the hospital so the half-outdoor waiting room was flowing over with very sick patients. A little girl with a foot so swollen it looked like an American football. A 10 year old kid, very thin, passed out in a wheelchair. Lots of blank stares, yellow and jaundiced, open mouths, all on wooden benches. I was folded over from exhaustion but still treated with some suspicion as the only "why ma" (white man) in the room. I was ushered into the big room after about an hour and a half and put on a wooden bed with a mere 50cm + a blue sheet between me and the neighbor - a seemingly naked old woman that must've gone through 3 bags of drip in the 5 hours I spent there. On my other side was a plywood plank with a gang of ants walking up and down it. Service was fine but I must say that I find the whole practice of having someone who just finished their lunch, turn around and then take your blood to be a bit questionable.

Not sure what induced the sickness. My primary theory is that is stress and heat related. Last week was hellishly busy as the treaty conference got off the ground. The issue of 'ownership' is very central in a transitional country like Liberia. If NGOs or the UN does everything and funds everything it means that little capacity is built domestically and the government becomes a mere spectator as international actors basically manage the country as a de facto protectorate. To prepare for an eventual departure of international actors the idea is, then, that the government should 'own' as much of the policies as possible. This responsibility sometimes turns out to be too much, especially if there is little capacity. This turned out to be one of those events. We were left to pick up the slack and basically harass people to show up to the event since the invitations never went out. At the same time, a conference of international donors was organized at the Foreign Ministry which we also had to help with. I was assigned to prepare a powerpoint presentation which, I discovered when I showed up that morning, was to be used by the Minister of Planning and Econ. Bragtime: He presented it in front of the 150 assembled ambassadors and the President! Afterwards, the World Bank rep commented to the crowd that it was an extremely interesting presentation and that it would take him a long time to absorb all the data in it. I was flying high. Feeling like a big shot. King of all mortals. 5 minutes later the reality of interning had again set in: I was carrying a 50kg, bulky coffee machine up the two stairs to a smaller conference meeting room. My powerpoint feat went by unacknowledged. No matter - I serve proudly in the dark... I don't need any fame. As long as I have my blog. My true friend here in life.

Pictures and (as promised) music mix will come in a day or so.

Old school,

Marcus